Circular Sanitation Days – Long live the dry toilet!

KanTe exchanges ideas with the (co-)curators of the Finnish and German Pavilions, Arja Renell and Florian Summa in the meeting room of the German Pavilion.

The conversation is part of the Circular Sanitation Days organised in connection to the German Pavilion’s exhibition Open for Maintenance with Project Group Sanitary Revolution.

The newly installed sanitary infrastructure in the German Pavilion addresses the ecological issue as much as the social one. It reacts to the fact that drinking water will be a rare resource in the future, which makes our “comfortable”, water-based toilet system increasingly inappropriate. 

Therefore, the urinal and toilet in the Pavillion operate without water. The urine is evaporated in a reactor called the nutrient harvester and turned into powdered fertilizer. The feces, in turn, are transported to an organic farm on the mainland, where they are hygienically processed by a mechanical rapid composter before being used as fertilizer for the farm’s crops. 

More than twenty scientists and practitioners were involved in the planning and realization of the prototypes: Experts in accessibility, equality, product design, (waste)water and composting technology, as well as the Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops. They are all united by the goal of a sanitary revolution – leaving behind the linear, water-based system for disposing of human waste in favor of a circular reuse process which, instead of human waste, sees a resource. 

The program brings together all participating parties for an exchange of knowledge in the field of circular sanitation.