P2GreeN

Turning human sanitary waste into fertilizer A consortium of 32 partner organisations from 12 European countries and Switzerland aiming to “close the gap between fork and farm for circular nutrient flows” short P2GreeN, signed the Grant Agreement for a four-year Horizon Europe Project, started on the first of December 2022. The project is coordinated by agrathaer GmbH and Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ) e.V. P2GreeN’s overall objective is to foster a circular material flow system between urban and rural areas thereby restoring the coupling of the water-agri-food system following the 3R principle “Reduce, Reuse, Recover”. To achieve this, P2GreeN will develop new solutions for the circular economy to halt and eliminate nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) pollution by connecting blue urban with green rural infrastructure, focussing on circular nutrient flows of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), two important plant nutrients and at the same time water polluters. This objective will be achieved through the implementation and exploration of innovative N and P recovery solutions for the utilization of human sanitary waste from urban settlements and its conversion into safe bio-based fertilizers for agricultural production in three pilot regions. Nitrogen and P are important plant nutrients and pollutants of surface and groundwater at the same time. The intensive use of fertilizers in agricultural production is a major factor for N and P pollution. Apart from that, mainstream fertilizer production methods are not sustainable. Additionally, high nutrient concentrations are also found in human sanitary waste streams from where they are ultimately released to rivers and coastal zones. Nutrient removal from wastewater is very energy intensive and hardly manageable. The use of sewage sludge for fertilization, however, is connected to problems such as micro pollutants. In consequence, new solutions are required. The three P2GreeN pilot regions are based in