Some very radical attempts to redesign the toilet have been made in
Scandinavia during the 1990s. Here there is much interest in reusing the
nutrients from wastewater in agriculture. To make this economically and
environmentally acceptable, it is crucial to reduce the amount of waste to
be transported. This is done by either designing very low flush toilets,
one liter or less, and/or using urine separation. (Urine contains about 90%
of the nitrogen and 2/3 of the phosphorus from blackwater.) One toilet
under development in Norway has a water use of 0.04 l per visit!

The biggest gathering this year to discuss these and similar themes will be
the conference Managing the Wastewater Resource: Ecological Engineering for
Wastewater Treatment, 7-11 June 1999, in Aas, Norway. The conference will
also take up such issues as constructed wetlands in cold climates,
wastewater-fed aquaculture, and economics and systems analysis of
wastewater treatment systems, amongst others. For further information on
the conference and to register, please see our web page
http://wwworg.nlh.no/ecoeng99

The deadline for abstracts has officially past, but if you submit something
very soon, we should still have time to include it before the final program
is issued.

Cheers,
Carl Etnier
Member, conference board

[log in to unmask]
Agricultural University of Norway
Department of Engineering
Box 5065
1432 Aas             Tel. +47 6494 8666
Norway               Fax  +47 6494 8810




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