1. Overview and problem statement
Did you know…?
Europe imports nearly 100% of the required phosphorus to manufacture fertilizers for agriculture? 45 At the same time, each person must absorb and excrete several 100 milligrams of phosphorus every day 46. Thus, our urine contains a valuable raw material.
In the event industry, especially in the context of outdoor festivals, sanitation presents an enormous logistical expenditure. On the other hand, handling sanitation facilities and the nutrients they produce is a low-threshold and major factor contributing to a resource-positive circular economy.
Each type of toilet (whether mobile toilets, vacuum toilets, compost toilets, water rinsed toilets or urinals) offers the opportunity to recover phosphorus and other environmental nutrients and keep them in circulation.
Water is already a scarce resource for which there are distribution battles worldwide and is increasingly rationed even in Europe.47 At events, water is used to flush toilets, wash hands, prepare food and take showers, among other things, and usually flows off as waste water. So far, no recirculation practices have been implemented. This can change by making black or gray water usable again through the right infrastructure and treatment and by using rainwater instead of tap water.
2. Our Benchmark for Tempelhof Lab
We set various targets for water usage and recovering resources from solid and fluid toilet waste:
- Consider all toilets as a source of environmental nutrients and determine how and with which service provider, solid and fluid can be recovered, separated, and processed for reuse as fertilizer.
- Drive structural change by supporting and implementing pilot projects for the processing of accumulated nutrients and their further use.
- Use water instead of consuming it. Treat accrued graywater from sanitation and food service operations and make it available for further use onsite.
- Set communication incentives. Inform the public about nutrient cycles in sanitation and reduce fear of contact with new types of toilets such as composting toilets through gamification elements.
- Offer educational info on how to manage nutrients and resources and how to process liquid and solid materials onsite.
- Think about social sustainability and diversity. Offer separate urinals for FLINTA*.
3. What worked well, what can be improved?
Various measures were taken at Tempelhof Lab, to align water and sanitation practices as much as possible with a Cradle to Cradle circular economy.
Toilets
What worked well?
- We recovered 80% of all solid and fluid toilet waste for reuse.
- Onsite 30% of the toilets were compost toilets. In cooperation with Finzio, the fluid and solid waste was collected and as part of a research project is prepared to become liquid phosphorus – fertilizer and hummus.
- A total of 10.5 m³ of solids and 115 m³ of urine were collected in the composting toilets and urinals. This resulted in almost 30,000 liters of liquid fertilizer and 8,000 kilograms of hummus fertilizer.
- Onsite 50% of toilets were mobile toilets, in which a biodegradable fluid additive was used instead of conventionally dangerous chemicals. We made sure that the toilets were emptied into the Berlin Waßmannsdorf wastewater treatment plant. This is the only sewage treatment plant in Berlin where phosphorus can already be recovered from sewage sludge. A total of 146,250 liters were fed into the treatment plant from the portable toilets
- Educational project “P-Bank”. A mobile water flushing toilet, which explains phosphorus recycling.
What can be improved?
- 100 % recycling of all toilet nutrients. Not only for composting toilets and portable toilets, but also for water-flushed portable toilets and all urinals.
- Even better communication with the audience, including explanation of the concept and use of composting toilets.
- FLINTA* urinals were not used for various reasons: They are unfortunately still very expensive and were rejected by the public at previous events.
Water
What worked well?
- Savings of 99 million liters of water. The supply chains of products and services were included in this calculation. A large part of the savings compared to a conventional concert can be attributed to the predominantly vegan/vegetarian food menu.
- Free drinking water for the audience and production crews at six water stations.
- Pilot project: osmosis filter at the hand-washing station of a water-flushed toilet container to treat the gray water produced there and reuse it for toilet flushing.
- Provision of reusable bottles for bands and tour crew and water dispensers in the backstage area.
What can be improved?
- Osmosis filter was installed only on one flushing toilet container as a pilot project. The goal was to reuse gray water throughout the venue, including the catering areas. 800 liters of gray water from the handwash basin of the container were accumulated in the tank which contained the osmosis filter; 850 liters would have been necessary to activate the filter.
- Provision of a tap water bar with reusable cups throughout the production area. Was only implemented in tour catering for approx. 80 people due to hygiene concerns and infrastructural challenges.
Others
What worked well?
- Toilet container equipped with C2C-certified toilet paper, hand towels, and recyclable hand towels and soap dispensers.
- Recycled toilet paper in the compost toilets.
- Use of C2C-certified cleaning products in the airport buildings.
- The urinals and folding composting toilets required less load capacity than toilet containers and portable toilets, thus saving on transport emissions.
What can be improved?
- The target was to cover a certain proportion of water consumption for restroom cleaning and catering with rain water. However, it was not possible, because the collected rain water at Tempelhof Field flowed over different surfaces without a filtration system, i.e. it contained partially toxic residual material from old pipes and surfaces.
4. Findings and Recommendations
Toilets
- Compost toilets are a very good alternative to water flushed or mobile toilets and enable easy waste collection and separation.
- The ability to offer compost toilets or even FLINTA* – urinals is still limited today. Therefore, they should be procured well in advance- especially for big events.
- Compost toilets are not yet ubiquitous. They require corresponding communication, clarification and instruction about the concept and use.
- The EUs fertilizer ordinance currently in effect only permits fertilizers from human feces to be used for research projects in the agricultural sector. Risk Studies show that with proper handling, use of such fertilizers is not dangerous for humans and the environment.
- Cooperation of event organizers with such demonstration projects can draw further attention to how toilet waste can be reused to nourish soil for agriculture. Further positive research results increase the pressure on policymakers to change the law.
- Portable chemical toilets have a bad reputation in terms of their environmental performance. But they can also help to close nutrient cycles.
- Mobile chemical toilets can also do without chemical additives if necessary, depending on the period of use. For example, during short events.
- If chemical additives are needed, use biodegradable options.
- Contents of chemical toilets can be diverted to wastewater treatment plants that already recover phosphorus from sewage sludge.
- Phosphorus recovery is especially effective if urine is collected separately- for example in urinals or in compost toilets where there are separate receptacles for feces and urine.
- Today the focus of urinal provision lies on cis men. Thus the opportunity to collect the urine of FLINTA* persons and reuse of the resulting phosphorus resources is being wasted.
- FLINTA* urinals are still relatively unknown. The easier and more comfortable they are to use, the greater their acceptance and increased use by the public. Good communication and usage instructions can ensure this.
Water
- The osmosis filter unfortunately could not be used due to a low quantity of flowing water.
- Osmosis is only effective, if it is used venue-wide and the water inflow is controlled, that for each filter a sufficient quantity of water is guaranteed (in our case 850 liter water).
- Especially for recurring events in fixed locations, the required quantities of venue-wide use can be achieved. The investment pays off because, for example, less fresh water is used for toilet flushing.
- Free drinking water stations work well and the public is grateful for them.
- A venue-wide drinking water supply, including for the entire production area, must be planned way in advance.
- It must be ensured that the available tap water can be used as drinking water and that a corresponding infrastructure is present or installed for distribution throughout the venue.
- If drinking water stations can be offered for the entire production area, it should be accompanied with the request for workers to bring their own reusable drinking cup. Alternatively, a reusable cup can be offered by the organizers. In the latter case, a rinsing system must be provided.
- Rain water is free and is a good way to lower the use of freshwater.
- The biggest challenge is in ensuring the infrastructure to collect, process, distribute and further recycle the water.
- Depending on the level of contamination of the rain water (and the collection point) a cleaning system is needed, for example an osmosis filter.
- Especially in case of recurring events and fixed locations, the investment pays off with one such system, because less fresh water is needed overall.
- In order to lower water usage, a jet spray feature on taps and shower heads as well as stop button in case of toilet flushing is sensible.
Others
- Today, water scarcity is a familiar topic amongst large parts of the population. It’s a different story when it comes to recycling residual waste from toilets.
- Both topics can be easily communicated through gamification elements or playful formats such as quizzes. When the audience is actively involved, they engage more deeply with a topic. At Tempelhof Lab, these formats were very well received.
- For safety reasons, we refrained from allowing the audience to bring refillable bottles (except 0.5 liter PET bottles without lids). However, this should definitely be considered, especially at smaller events, in order to reduce the amount of waste on site and still provide the opportunity to fill drinking water.
- Especially for smaller events, this measure should be seriously considered to lower the garbage onsite and still offer free drinking water.
5. Service Provider Contacts
- Compost toilet & urinals: Finzio
- Water rinsed toilets and urinals: FKP event service
- Mobile toilets: Wolkchen, HP Enders; Eco Blue
- Preparation content mobile toilet: Sewage plant Wassmanndorf / BWB
- P-Bank: Werkhaus
- Collection and preparation of human solid- and fluid substances for humus and fertilizers: Finzio in Zirkulierbar project
- Osmosis filter: Green life
- Reusable flasks: Soul bottles
- Toilet paper: WEPA
- Cleaning medium: Dr. Schnell
- Phosphorus – meter: Team Hamburg
6. Further inspiration from the industry
Other events and festivals also focus on sustainable sanitation and water practices:
The sustainability concept of Boom Festival (capacity 40,000) from Portugal consists of 12 categories, for which a large focus is on water (scarcity) and sanitation. The festival invested in two permanently installed biological water treatment plants, one of which can filter up to 7 million liters of water. All toilets are waterless and the gray water produced in hand basins and showers is treated. The compost from the toilets (which a local university rated A++ and so it could be used for organic farming) is used to fertilize the adjacent land. The showers and water stations are only available during certain hours with low water pressure.
Plant A Seeed – a scientific community project by The Changency and Technische Universität Berlin at 5 sold-out concerts of the band Seeed in Berlin’s Wuhlheide (capacity: 17,000) used a water bar from Water Is Right, which saved 2,800 plastic bottles over 5 days in the production area alone.
The audience of the Danish Rosklide Festival (capacity: 130,000) helped produced the main ingredient of their “Pisner Beer” themselves. Urine was collected at the festival and used to produce fertilizer. This was used to fertilize the barley that was used to brew the beer for the festival.48
