Die Verwertung humaner Exkremente als Ressource

Potentiale, Praxisbeispiele und politische Regulierung

Abstract

In a webinar organized in WiSe2020/21 as part of the 5th Progressive Introductory Weeks, the 7th Eco-social University Days and the online seminar "Bioeconomy" at OVGU Magdeburg, Mr. Enno Schröder gave a presentation on the use of human excrement as a resource for the bioeconomy. Under the titel “When does human shit become fertilizer? Bioeconomy in practice”, Mr. Schröder presented the activities of the social enterprise "Goldeimer gGmbH" and the “Netzwerk für Nachhaltige Sanitärsysteme e.V. (netsan.org)". In the talk, possible methods of composting human faeces, potential risks as well as the current legal regulation were presented in detail. From Goldeimer's perspective, the latter makes it difficult to commercially utilize human feces as a valuable resource for the bioeconomy. With a combination of basic scientific research, standardization and quality assurance in composting, networking and lobbying, Goldeimer gGmbH and partners of the network try to improve the conditions for this. The report on this seminar was written by Oliver Keminer and supplemented by some references (footnotes) and comments.