receipt for · phys.org/news/2026-10-recycled-fertilizers-sanitation-effective-conventional.html
Recycled fertilizers from sanitation systems are as effective as conventional fertilizers, study finds
awaiting safety review
Recycled fertilizers from sanitation systems are as effective as conventional fertilizers, study finds
awaiting safety review
Phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium, for example, are indispensable for agricultural crop production.
awaiting safety review
However, natural reserves are limited, vary greatly in regional availability or are very energy-intensive to extract.
awaiting safety review
Resource-oriented sanitation systems (ROS) offer a sustainable solution for managing these raw materials: they collect nutrient-rich material streams from human excreta separately and, as far as possible, undiluted with water.
awaiting safety review
After targeted treatment, the plant nutrients they contain can be made available for agricultural use again.
awaiting safety review
A research team has studied this treatment process, compiling extensive international data on various ROS-based recycled fertilizers for the first time in a recent study.
awaiting safety review
For 13 types of recycled fertilizers, sufficient data were available to characterize their properties in detail.
awaiting safety review
The study is published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science.
awaiting safety review
Many can be classified into known categories of mineral, organic or organic-mineral fertilizers in terms of nutrient composition and function.
awaiting safety review
The results show that the recycled products are just as effective agronomically as conventional fertilizers.
awaiting safety review
"Our findings provide an important scientific basis for their application, as they show that recycled fertilizers derived from separately collected material streams are not second-class fertilizers," says Martina Winker of the Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE), a co-author of the study.
awaiting safety review
"For the study, we compiled more than 450 data sets from over 200 sources across 32 countries and analyzed them at the product level.
awaiting safety review
Our findings on individual fertilizer products show that nutrient recycling from human waste has long been a scientific topic at the international level," says Ariane Krause of the Network for Sustainable Sanitation (NetSan), also a co-author of the study.
awaiting safety review
"Until now, however, there has been no comprehensive overview of the wide variety of products, processes and application conditions.
awaiting safety review
The nutrients contained in a ROS-based fertilizer—as well as their form and concentration—depend largely on the raw material and the specific processing method.
awaiting safety review
Overall, the heavy metal concentrations examined were predominantly low and comparable to those in established fertilizers.
awaiting safety review
The feedstock and treatment conditions are particularly critical for hygiene safety.
awaiting safety review
In contrast, the data on organic contaminants such as pharmaceutical residues or PFAS are still incomplete and do not yet allow for a comparably comprehensive assessment across all product groups.
awaiting safety review
The fertilizing effect was determined for the study using a quantitative meta-analysis of 134 data sets from 68 sources, including 31 crop species as well as field, pot and hydroponic trials.
awaiting safety review
Across the recycled fertilizers examined, no systematic yield disadvantage was observed compared to mineral fertilizers; yields were generally significantly higher than in unfertilized control treatments.