We've updated our Summit website with the full agenda , presenter bios , and abstracts .

Register here to join us online Nov 12 - 14! 

10th Annual Rich Earth Summit
View the Summit Agenda  & Register Here 

The 2024 Rich Earth Summit marks the 10th annual global gathering on urine reclamation, organized by Rich Earth Institute . Urine, rich in essential plant nutrients, can be reclaimed as a sustainable fertilizer while preventing nutrient pollution in watersheds. This process, known as “peecycling,” can be a vital strategy for both nutrient management and sustainable sanitation solutions. The Summit brings together researchers, practitioners, and advocates from around the world to share knowledge, showcase innovative projects, and foster new collaborations. 

The Rich Earth Summit will include introductory sessions for those new to the topic as well as advanced presentations on cutting-edge research and practical implementation projects. The hybrid format allows participation both virtually and in-person. Interactive virtual sessions will enable participants to explore new ideas and make global connections. The in-person Summit component, hosted in Brattleboro, Vermont, will feature a urine recycling mobile unit created by Wasted* and an Open House at the Research Center of the Rich Earth Institute and Brightwater Tools. 

Sarah Nahar, M.Div, Syracuse University, will present the Summit Keynote: “To Have Excretory Justice, We Have to Deal With Our Crap.” 

2024 Summit topics include: 

• Urine treatment and processing (including concentration, microbial dynamics, and contaminant removal)
• Container-based systems and sanitation justice
• Urine fertilizer applications in agriculture (including farmer partnerships, perennial agriculture, and urine-enriched biochar)
• Navigating policy and regulatory pathways
• Design and sociotechnical dynamics
• Virtual tours of urine recycling facilities
• Knowledge-sharing strategies and collective action initiatives
• Engaging youth in circular sanitation solutions

Why Source Separation? Separating human waste at the source rather than combining it into one, dilute wastewater stream can enable tight, efficient cycles of resource recovery. Source separation increases the value of the resource: contamination and dilution are minimized while processing is simplified.  About Rich Earth InstituteSince 2012, the Rich Earth Institute has been a leader in promoting the practice of peecycling, advocating for regional nutrient sovereignty and climate-resilient sanitation. The Institute operates the first and largest community-scale urine recycling program in the United States, contributing to a growing global movement for circular sanitation systems. 
Join us at the Rich Earth Summit, your golden opportunity to connect with the global urine recycling community. Learn more and register today at /www.richearthsummit.org/

The Rich Earth Summit is the global event dedicated to advancing urine nutrient reclamation, bringing together experts, practitioners, and industry leaders to foster collaboration and innovation in this field. 

We hope you will join us either virtually or in-person  in Brattleboro, VT.  The Summit will include themed presentations, virtual tours and exhibitions, a guided field trip through Rich Earth’s community urine recycling program, an open house, and a keynote presentation from one of France’s leading urine diversion researchers,  Fabien Esculier. 


 

There's still time to register for Rich Earth's Summit on reclaiming urine as a resource! The event will be November 2 - 4, held via Zoom. See the full list of presenters on our website.

Join us for Rich Earth's annual Urine Diversion Summit  on November 2 – 4, 2021! This annual event brings together researchers, practitioners, policy makers, industry leaders, and students, catalyzing new collaborations and partnerships as we continue to grow the body of knowledge about this innovative practice. This 3-day gathering will feature presentations on the technology, regulation, design, culture, and art of urine reclamation as well as opportunities for networking and collaboration. The Summit will be virtual again this year and recordings will be available after the event.
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Lynn Broaddus
Nov. 2, 9:00 -10:30 am EDT
Lynn Broaddus, Ph.D, M.B.A. is the 2020-21 president of the Water Environment Federation (WEF), an international organization of water quality professionals headquartered in Alexandria, Va. Lynn formed Broadview Collaborative Inc. in 2014 as a platform for advancing sustainable, resilient practices in the water sector. She serves as a strategic adviser and facilitator for private-sector, nonprofit and philanthropic clients throughout North America, and is known for bringing new ways of thinking to the crucial environmental challenges of our day.

Admission By Donation
Your contributions will help to cover the cost of hosting this Summit. Additional funds raised will be donated to support the Container Based Sanitation Alliance (CBSA), which provides access to dignified, safe, and affordable sanitation in dense urban areas otherwise lacking in options. This alliance includes Clean Team (Ghana), Loowatt (Madagascar), Sanivation and Sanergy (Kenya), SOIL (Haiti) and x-runner (Peru).

Present at the Rich Earth Summit 
Do you have research results, a project, or other experience you want to share? Submit an abstract for an 8-10 minute lightning talk here . Creative, prerecorded presentations are welcome. Recordings of each panel will be made available after the event. We will continue accepting submissions until all presentation spots are filled. Take a look at our working list of panels below. Presentations fitting within these themes are encouraged.

Panel Themes (Working List)

Roundtable Discussion: Economics of Productive Sanitation in the US
As the American Rescue Plan Act introduces a surge of funding for wastewater infrastructure with a short four year timeline, pre-existing technologies are prioritized over innovative ones, which require longer term investments in research and development. This discussion will focus on the challenges and opportunities for long-range funding for innovative wastewater technologies.

Progress in Technological Research for Urine Diversion Systems
Researchers are invited to present new developments in treatment and processing systems for effective, efficient urine nutrient reclamation.

The Places We Go: Urine Diverting Toilets Around the World
This panel will feature a wide variety of designs for urine collection, including both portable and permanent installations. Panelists will be invited to share their learnings about user experiences with urine diverting toilets and urinals. They will also be invited to share their design processes.

Agricultural Uses for Urine Fertilizer
This panel will explore a wide range of applications for urine fertilizer usage in different settings. The panel discussion will also include an emphasis on exploring opportunities for urine fertilization to support initiatives for food justice and nutrient sovereignty. (Nutrient sovereignty is the right of all peoples to cycle nutrients for food cultivation.)

Global Partnerships for Urine Reclamation
This panel will focus on existing and emerging collaborations between regions for researching and implementing urine recycling systems. It will center on the question that emerged in Rich Earth’s 2020 Summit: “How can we help technology solutions flow between places with and without pre-existing infrastructure, including global majority and low-income countries?” Panelists are invited to share their insights on both opportunities and challenges for sharing knowledge and technologies between diverse contexts.

Making, Doing, Going: DIY Approaches to Peecycling
In addition to high-tech designs, simple DIY practices for fertilizing with urine abound. In this panel, researchers, designers, and tinkerers (and tinklers!) will present tools for recycling urine at the home.

Lifecycle Assessments & Environmental Impacts
This panel will feature discussions of full-system analysis, including life cycle assessments and regional opportunities for implementation of urine nutrient reclamation with the most beneficial environmental impact.

Socio-Technical Change and Cultures of Urine Recycling
This panel invites perspectives on the broader social and cultural meanings of reclaiming bodily nutrients as a resource. We are particularly interested in presentations that focus on: participatory approaches to productive sanitation system design; the role of religion and spirituality; developing relations of reciprocity between humans and the land; the power and potential of humor, joy, and community; opportunities for supporting sanitation justice initiatives with eco-san tools; and our ongoing responsibilities to understanding impacts on human and nonhuman health.

Thank you for sharing the presentation links for the '2020 Rich Earth Virtual Summit'(which focuses on reclaiming urine as a resource) this is very useful for others including myself who could not attend the virtual summit.

The summit was a great opportunity to learn about the various projects being undertaken in order to utilize urine in agricultural activities. 

One of the discussions that I found particularly interesting was urine use in Africa. With most subsistence farmers not being able to afford fertilizers, it is cost-effective to use human urine for crop production. To encourage the use of urine by local farmers in East and West Africa,  urine for farming has been branded “OGA'', a term literally meaning '' Urine is Boss' . I can imagine how this really helps to address issues of acceptance surrounding the use of the resource.  I wonder what efforts are being made in other regions within the African continent and what else is being done to build acceptance? I might have missed this within the recordings.

I also found it interesting how technologies such as 'The Solar Dripper' is being used as a urine fertilizer tool to put urine directly in the soil, allowing crops to grow very healthy and tastier. In addition, various waterless urinals for urine collection projects such as the MARCELLE women’s urinal project (read more about it here ) and the Container-Based Sanitation Alliance Initiatives (read more here ) are very interesting to see and are progressive initiatives towards this cause.

Regards,
Chaiwe

The recordings for our 6th annual summit are now up on our website! View the recordings from the full three days here: richearthinstitute.org/2020-virtual-summit/

I did participate to this "Rich Earth Virtual Summit" yesterday and the system works quite well !

I was online from Annecy in France with ZOOM doing live discussions and
presentations  with people in Vermont, Brasil, Oregon, Africa or Canada.

There are a lot of interesting projects.    About 80 to 120 people were connected online.

This type of meeting is quite eco friendly compared to taking a plane and to spend spend xxx € for a short travel.


Today I will follow it on my phone ... while working in the tomato garden !

Good job !

Robert Cossette

solar-dripper.com/wp-content/uploads/ORI...ichearth-sept-16.pdf

Thanks Elisabeth!!

We will also be posting recordings of all of the sessions on that same page of our website after the event. We realize that the timing is not very conducive to all time zones - especially Australia!

Here's a map of where our attendees were calling in from today:

Here is a reminder for everyone that you can still register for this online event which starts today and looks very interesting. It's the Rich Earth Virtual Summit: Reclaiming Urine as a Resource. Scroll up (or down) to the post before mine to see the program and registration link. Or see here:  richearthinstitute.org/2020-summit-schedule/

It's an interesting concept to make access "by donation". I hesitated a bit when I registered whether I felt like paying or not... (for those on no income, the option exists to register for free). In the end I did make a donation just to support the process and maybe get used to it. If we will have more online events in future and less face to face meetings (a development which I would support), we might have to get used to having to pay for such online events more and more in future, especially if they are not funded by the big organisations like Worldbank, UNICEF etc. 

Anyhow, now I look forward to attending those sessions that match my awake hours (my time zone in Australia is 14 hours ahead of Boston)... 

Elisabeth

Here is the schedule for our three-day summit! You can also view the full, detailed summit schedule on our website. 

Register here to receive zoom links for each day!

Dear Professor Ajit Seshadri,

Thank you for expressing interest in our summit! We hope that you will register to attend and share with your colleagues in India. Please let me know if you have any specific questions about the gathering.

All the best,
Julia

Rich Earth Institute