NEWSBITS

  EcoEng Newsletter 2, July 2000

Ethiopia:

Composting Toilets in Eastern Africa
  as. The Sweden based organization SUDEA has been working in Ethiopia since 1996 with a project called ECOSAN - ecological, economical sanitation. SUDEA's system -urine separating toilet, urban agriculture and participation of the involved persons - might be one option in ecological sanitation in this country.

They use the urine without treatment as a fertiliser in bio-intensive gardening systems, dry out and compost the faeces to make them safe before using them as a soil conditioner in home gardening. The ECOSAN system produces food or fodder in small areas of only 15 m2 and at the same time it consumes the organic waste in the household. SUDEA has built more than 100 units in Ethiopia, most of them in Addis Abeba.

More info: http://www.sudea.org

Fiji:

Wastewater Garden Built in Tropical Resort
  as/ddp. D. del Porto's Sustainable Strategies has recently completed a Wastewater Garden in Lalati Resort, on Bequa Island, Fiji.

The design concept is to integrate porcelain low-flush (.5 L) toilet to recycled polyethylene removable-batch composters located under the building. The nutrient rich-leachate filtered by the compost mass is combined with filtered washwater and drained to the sub-surface irrigation system in the Wastewater Gardens which surround the buildings, but are under a roof overhang so they will not be flooded by rain.

In this plan, as the plants mature, all the nutrients and effluent are consumed, so no effluent discharge to ground or receiving water occurs. This system is only one year old and already has be cited by the World Health Organization (WHO) for best ecotourism practice in sanitation.

Source: David del Porto, personal communication, sustainable@aics.net , May 19, 2000

Finland:

Upcoming Conference on Management of Northern River Basins
  as/kh. On June 6-8, 2001 a conference on Management of Northern River Basins will take place in Oulu, Finland. The conference is organized by the University of Oulu, the Northern Environmental Research Network and the EU RiverLife project.

The aim of the conference is to bring together scientists and water specialists involved in research and water pollution control of northern rivers. Particular emphasis will be put to approaching the watershed as a whole in river status assessment, water pollution control technology and land use planning. The conference gives the participants an opportunity to discuss and present issues on the current knowledge on the subject. It provides also a forum to exchange ideas and promote new initiatives on this challenging field of environmental research.

Please send the preliminary title of your presentation by 31 August 2000 by e-mail to Mrs. Merja Lehisto/University of Oulu (merja.lehisto@oulu.fi)

Conference info: http://www.thule.oulu.fi/_nornet$/nornet2/noriba/index.htm

Germany:

Competition to Promote Environmentally Sound Alpine Huts
  The "Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt" in Osnabrück, Germany (an important German environmental foundation) has set aside 6 million DEM for a competition to promote the development of smart, environmentally sound concepts to deal with energy and drinking water supply and the treatment of waste and wastewater generated in alpine huts. The foundation will support 14-16 pilot projects until 2003.

Contact: Deutschen Bundesstiftung Umwelt, An der Bornau 2, 49090 Osnabrück, Stichwort "Alpenhütten", Fax 0541/9633-192 [applicants must probably be German residents, the EcoEng online editor]

Info on DBU: http://www.dbu.de [in German]

Germany:

New Pilot Project With Urine Separating Toilets
  as/ro. The group of Ralph Otterpohl at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, Germany, is starting a new pilot project with separating toilets, that use no water for urine (new model from german company coming soon) and adjustable flush for feces. Feces are flushed to 2-chamber composting chamber ("Rottebehälter") with filter bags. The feed is changed yearly. As urine has been taken out, the filtrate should be low loaded. They want to evaluate its quality and hope that treatment with greywater can be done in a safe way. Otherwise there could be a separate part of the bio-sandfilter to keep greywater safe for high quality reuse. This system has the advantage that that the composter can be installed in some distance from the houses.

Source: Prof. Ralph Otterpohl, Germany, personal communication, May 22, 2000

Germany:

First Masters Program in Ecological Engineering Started
  as. Fachhochschule Magdeburg in East Germany (a technical college or polytechnic) is the first institution in Germany that offers an Ecological Engineering Masters program. The first program has been started in spring 2000.

Info: http://www.fh-magdeburg.de/studium/moegl/stgioe.html [in German]

New Zealand:

Conference on Ecological Engineering for Landscape Services and Products
  as/ad. On November 25 to 29, 2001 the next in a series of meetings for members and supporters of the International Ecological Engineering Society , IEES will take place in Canterbury, New Zealand.

This conference will be of particular interest to those practioners, researchers, academics and students working or studying in the disciplines of ecology and/or engineering (and related disciplines) and who are interested in using interdisciplinary approaches to the design of our societies by integrating with social, cultural, economic and ecological criteria.

Four primary themes have been selected for this conference. These are:
1. Ecologically engineering for services such as:

  • water supply, waste and wastewater
  • waterways and drainage
  • energy production and supply systems
  • transport systems
  • production of building materials
  • food and fibre production
  • natural hazards mitigation

2. Economics and markets for landscape services and products
3. Decision making and implementation strategies to achieve integrated development
4. Education and training in ecological engineering

Conference info: http://lincoln.ac.nz/pdg/iees/
Download 1st Announcement as .PDF-File

Sweden:

Stensund Wastewater Aquaculture Closing Down Soon
  as/bg. The board of Stensund Folk College decided at its meeting on May 27, 2000 to finish the project Stensund Wastewater Aquaculture . The project which was inaugurated on October 10, 1989 has fulfilled its goals after more than 10 years of intensive activity. The concept of research with direct public access has reached thousands of visitors of the aquaculture and also via the internet website. The main reason for closing down the project was a lack of financing resources for renovation of the aquaculture building and for further technological development.

The project leader and initiator Dr. Björn Guterstam will apply for further grants in order to make a final evaluation of the project. The experiences will be transferred to other ecotechnological projects.

Switzerland:

New Integrated EAWAG Project "Novaquatis" Started
  as. "Combining Urban Water Management, Nutrient Recycling and Modern Farming" is the goal of a new integrated EAWAG project which has just been started. The project focuses on the implementation of urine separating toilets in an urban setting and the consequences it would have on urban water management, processing of urine and its application in (ecological) agriculture.

This ambitious new project can be visited in the internet on http://www.novaquatis.eawag.ch

Switzerland:

New Biogas Plant Inaugurated at EMMI Cheese Factory, Dagmersellen
  as. Participants of the 2nd Ecological Engineering Conference in Waedenswil, Switzerland, 1995, may still remember the EMMI cheese factory case study (see also Staudenmann et al., 1996). The factory had problems with the local environmental authorities, because they were discharging too much wastewater from Mozzarella cheese production, high in BOD, to the local wastewater treatment plant. Some 20 conference participants were visiting the plant and proposed some potential solutions to EMMI.

The solution, EMMI has finally decided on, was inaugurated recently. The BOD rich wastewater is led through a anaerobic bioreactor where it is treated. In the reactor, biogas is produced which is then reused in the factory. This helps EMMI to save as much as 145'000 Liters of oil per year, they say. Although this is none of the solutions that were proposed by the participants of "Waedenswil 1995", it is still a step towards more sustainability in cheese production.

Source: Neue Luzerner Zeitung, July 8, 2000
Reference: Staudenmann, J., Schönborn, A., Etnier, C., 1995, Recycling the Resource - Ecological Engineering for Wastewater Treatment, Environmental Research Forum 5-6, Transtech Publications

USA:

Comprehensive Website on Composting
  as. A comprehensive website on composting can be found on "Cornell Composting". The website provides access to a variety of composting educational materials and programs developed at Cornell University. Among others, there is a wealth of background and practical information available in the section "The Science and Engineering of Composting".

URL: http://www.cfe.cornell.edu/compost/

WWW:

New Mailing List WaterCom
  as/ff. The mailing list is intended to provide an opportunity for exchanging commercial announcements associated with water resources engineering, hydrology, hydraulics and other water-related sciences. Postings pertaining to products, software releases, upgrades, job offers, etc. are welcome. To subscribe, send a blank e-mail message to WaterCom-subscribe@egroups.com

More information: http://www.egroups.com/group/WaterCom
 
© 2000, International Ecological Engineering Society, Wolhusen, Switzerland