Prevalence and Source Tracing of PFAS in Shallow Groundwater Used for Drinking Water in Wisconsin, USA.

Samples from 450 homes with shallow private wells throughout the state of Wisconsin (USA) were collected and analyzed for 44 individual per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), general water quality parameters, and indicators of human waste as well as agricultural influence. At least one PFAS was detected in 71% of the study samples, and 22 of the 44 PFAS analytes were detected in one or more samples. Levels of PFOA and/or PFOS exceeded the proposed Maximum Contaminant Levels of 4 ng/L, put forward by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in March 2023, in 17 of the 450 samples, with two additional samples containing PFHxS ≳ 9 ng/L (the EPA-proposed hazard index reference value). Those samples above the referenced PFAS levels tend to be associated with developed land and human waste indicators (artificial sweeteners and pharmaceuticals), which can be released to groundwater via septic systems. For a few samples with levels of PFOA, PFOS, and/or PFHxS > 40 ng/L, application of wastes to agricultural land is a possible source. Overall, the study suggests that human waste sources, septic systems in particular, are important sources of perfluoroalkyl acids, especially ones with ≤8 perfluorinated carbons, in shallow groundwater.

Out of sight, out of mind: Understanding the sanitation crisis in global South cities.

Global monitoring efforts do not provide a clear picture of the challenge of managing human waste at the city scale. Where cities do not provide universal access to publicly managed sanitation systems, households and communities find their own solutions resulting in a patchwork of approaches to removing human waste from places where people live. In dense urban environments, the absence of a coordinated approach can create serious public health problems. In the absence of comparable city-level data, we analyze primary and secondary data from 15 cities and 15 informal settlements in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. Across these regions, our study finds that 62 percent of human waste is not safely managed. We also find that, while many cities have a proportion of households connected to sewers, none of the 15 cities safely manage human waste at scale. In the absence of sewers, on-site fecal sludge management systems place enormous responsibility on households and private providers, and unaffordable sanitation options result in risky sanitation practices.

Does the application of human waste as a fertilization material in agricultural production pose adverse effects on human health attributable to contaminants of emerging concern?

The QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe) ultrasound-assisted method was successfully used to determine the presence of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in both the growing medium (i.e. soil) and vegetable samples (i.e. potato, onion, celery, parsnip and carrot) cultivated in household gardens under field conditions impacted by the application of livestock manure mixed with human waste. CECs with a broad range of physico-chemical properties including pharmaceuticals, plasticizers, herbicides, personal care products, and biocides were investigated. Among all studied CECs, diclofenac (DCL), carbamazepine, bisphenol A (BPA) and estrogenic hormones (estrone (E1), 17α-ethinyl estradiol (EE2)) were detected and quantified in vegetable samples with a concentration range from 0.114 to 13.3 ng/g fresh weight (f.w.), while BPA, E1, and EE2 were detected in soil samples with concentration ranges from 0.526 to 0.830 ng/g f.w., 0.121-0.199 ng/g f.w. and 0.118-0.333 ng/g f.w., respectively. DCL was only quantified above the limit of quantification in one soil sample (0.151 ng/g f.w.). The human health risk was estimated using the threshold of toxicological concern approach and a standard diet for two segments of the population (i.e. adult and child). The consumption of investigated vegetables contaminated with CECs poses no risk for the Serbian population.

Effect of SARS-CoV-2 shedding rate distribution of individuals during their disease days on the estimation of the number of infected people. Application of wastewater-based epidemiology to the city of Thessaloniki, Greece.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, wastewater-based epidemiology has proved to be an important tool for monitoring the spread of a disease in a population. Indeed, wastewater surveillance was successfully used as a complementary approach to support public health monitoring schemes and decision-making policies. An essential feature for the estimation of a disease transmission using wastewater data is the distribution of viral shedding rate of individuals in their personal human wastes as a function of the days of their infection. Several candidate shapes for this function have been proposed in literature for SARS-CoV-2. The purpose of the present work is to explore the proposed function shapes and examine their significance on analyzing wastewater SARS-CoV-2 shedding rate data. For this purpose, a simple model is employed applying to medical surveillance and wastewater data of the city of Thessaloniki during a period of Omicron variant domination in 2022. The distribution shapes are normalized with respect to the total virus shedding and then their basic features are investigated. Detailed analysis reveals that the main parameter determining the results of the model is the difference between the day of maximum shedding rate and the day of infection reporting. Since the latter is not part of the distribution shape, the major feature of the distribution affecting the estimation of the number of infected people is the day of maximum shedding rate with respect to the initial infection day. On the contrary, the duration of shedding (total number of disease days) as well as the exact shape of the distribution are by far less important. The incorporation of such wastewater surveillance models in conventional epidemiological models - based on recorded disease transmission data- may improve predictions for disease spread during outbreaks.

Integrating Human Waste with Microbial Fuel Cells to Elevate the Production of Bioelectricity.

Due to the continuous depletion of natural resources currently used for electricity generation, it is imperative to develop alternative energy sources. Human waste is nowadays being explored as an efficient source to produce bio-energy. Human waste is renewable and can be used as a source for an uninterrupted energy supply in bioelectricity or biofuel. Annually, human waste such as urine is produced in trillions of liters globally. Hence, utilizing the waste to produce bioenergy is bio-economically suitable and ecologically balanced. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) play a crucial role in providing an effective mode of bioelectricity production by implementing the role of transducers. MFCs convert organic matter into energy using bio-electro-oxidation of material to produce electricity. Over the years, MFCs have been explored prominently in various fields to find a backup for providing bioenergy and biofuel. MFCs involve the role of exoelectrogens which work as transducers to convert the material into electricity by catalyzing redox reactions. This review paper demonstrates how human waste is useful for producing electricity and how this innovation would be beneficial in the long term, considering the current scenario of increasing demand for the supply of products and shortages of natural resources used to produce biofuel and bioelectricity.

Phosphorus circular economy of disposable baby nappy waste: Quantification, assessment of recycling technologies and plan for sustainability.

This study assessed the potential for minimizing human excreta bound phosphorus (P) loss through used disposable baby nappies, an area that remained unexplored for nations. Accordingly, it performed a substance flow analysis to assess the national P loss through used disposable baby nappies in the case of Australia. The analysis revealed that approximately 308 tonne P is lost through used baby nappies to landfills in Australia in 2019, which is nearly 2.5% of the overall P excreta as human waste. Although the quantity seems small in percentage term, it could result in the loss of a significant amount of P over several years, as assessed 5452 tonne P over the 2001-2019 period, which is concerning in the context of anticipated future global P scarcity. The review of peer-reviewed literature on available technologies/methods for recycling disposable baby nappy waste indicates that there are some technologies for recycling P particularly through co-composting with food and other organic wastes, while the majority of these are still at the lab/pilot scale. There are also various recycling techniques with purpose ranging from energy recovery to volume reduction, generation of pulp, hydrogel, cellulose, and polymer as well as to increase yield stress and viscosity of concrete, however, these are not effective in P recovery. The study implies that compost made of nappy waste can be used as fertilizer to produce bamboo, cotton, and maize plants to supply raw materials for producing biodegradable nappies, hence, to close the loop. The various product and system design options e.g., designing for flushing, designing for disassembling the excreta containing part, and designing for community composting suggested in this study could be further researched for identifying best suitable option to achieve P circular economy of disposable baby nappies. This study also recommends necessary interventions at various stages of the nappy life cycle to ensure sustainable management of phosphorus.

Accelerating nutrient release and pathogen inactivation from human waste by different pretreatment methods.

The limitation of hydrolysis and the health risks from pathogenic microorganisms are challenges in the treatment of human waste for volume reduction and nutrient recovery. In this study, potassium ferrate (PF), peroxymonosulfate (PMS), and PF combined with peroxymonosulfate (PMS+ PF) were used as pretreatment or co-treatment methods to enhance nutrient release and control pathogenic microorganisms in human waste. The PF pretreatment was the most effective regarding hydrolysis and organic matter release. The largest difference (D-value) in the soluble chemical oxygen demand (3117.0 mg/L) between the control and the treatment after 120 min was observed for the PF pretreatment, followed by the alkaline (ALK) pretreatment (1525.0 mg/L), the PF + PMS pretreatment (1169.3 mg/L), and the PMS pretreatment (1020.6 mg/L). The PF pre-treated waste exhibited the highest volatile solids reduction of 79.2% after 120 min compared with 15.0% reduction of the untreated waste, as well as the highest polysaccharide release, with a D-value of 198.5 mg/L. All pretreatments exhibited inactivation of pathogenic bacteria and helminths eggs; however, the PF pretreatment was the most efficient method to suppress pathogenic micrograms, with a 3.5 log (N/N0) decrease in the number of total coliforms. The PF pretreatment and PMS + PF co-treatment both exhibited the good performance regarding nitrogen release, including soluble protein and ammonium. The maximum D-value of the total soluble nitrogen was 372.8 mg/L for the PF + PMS co-treatment. The maximum D-value of soluble protein was 156.2 mg/L for the ALK pretreatment. The results indicated that the PF pretreatment was the most effective method for disintegrating human waste, thus providing a new method for safe and rapid reduction of human waste, as well as nutrient release.

Incorporation of mineralized human waste and fish waste as a source of higher plant mineral nutrition in the BTLSS mass exchange.

The present study deals with the development of the principles and conditions of fish waste mineralization using the method of wet combustion with hydrogen peroxide in alternating electromagnetic field and describes testing mineralized human waste and fish waste as sources of nutrients for plants in the biotechnical human life support system (BTLSS). The study shows that mineralization of fish waste in the wet combustion reactor should be performed in the presence of readily oxidized organic matter, represented by human waste, as an activator of oxidation. Re-mineralization of the sediment in the mixture of hydrogen peroxide and nitric acid in the wet combustion reactor converts mineral elements bound in the sediment into the form available to plants. Using mineralized fish waste as an additional source of mineral elements in the nutrient solutions for growing plants based on mineralized human waste is a way to reduce the amounts of mineral elements added to the solution to replenish it, enabling fuller closure of material loops in the BTLSS.

Biohydrogen production from space crew's waste simulants using thermophilic consolidated bioprocessing.

Human waste simulants were for the first time converted into biohydrogen by a newly developed anaerobic microbial consortium via thermophilic consolidated bioprocessing. Four different BioH2-producing consortia (denoted as C1, C2, C3 and C4) were isolated, and developed using human waste simulants as substrate. The thermophilic consortium C3, which contained Thermoanaerobacterium, Caloribacterium, and Caldanaerobius species as the main constituents, showed the highest BioH2 production (3.999 mmol/g) from human waste simulants under optimized conditions (pH 7.0 and 60 °C). The consortium C3 also produced significant amounts of BioH2 (5.732 mmol/g and 2.186 mmol/g) using wastewater and activated sludge, respectively. The developed consortium in this study is a promising candidate for H2 production in space applications as in situ resource utilization.

Human waste: An underestimated source of nutrient pollution in coastal seas of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.

Many people practice open defecation in south Asia. As a result, lot of human waste containing nutrients such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) enter rivers. Rivers transport these nutrients to coastal waters, resulting in marine pollution. This source of nutrient pollution is, however, ignored in many nutrient models. We quantify nutrient export by large rivers to coastal seas of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, and the associated eutrophication potential in 2000 and 2050. Our new estimates for N and P inputs from human waste are one to two orders of magnitude higher than earlier model calculations. This leads to higher river export of nutrients to coastal seas, increasing the risk of coastal eutrophication potential (ICEP). The newly calculated future ICEP, for instance, Godavori river is 3 times higher than according to earlier studies. Our modeling approach is simple and transparent and can easily be applied to other data-poor basins.

Nutrient fluxes from domestic wastewater: A national-scale historical perspective for the UK 1800-2010.

Nutrient emissions in human waste and wastewater effluent fluxes from domestic sources are quantified for the UK over the period 1800-2010 based on population data from UK Census returns. The most important drivers of change have been the introduction of the water closet (flush toilet) along with population growth, urbanization, connection to sewer, improvements in wastewater treatment and use of phosphorus in detergents. In 1800, the population of the UK was about 12 million and estimated emissions in human waste were 37kt N, 6.2kt P and 205ktorganicC/year. This would have been recycled to land with little or no sewage going directly to rivers or coastal waters. By 1900, population had increased to 35.6 million and some 145kt N were emitted in human waste but, with only the major urban areas connected to sewers, only about 19kt N were discharged in sewage effluent. With the use of phosphorus in detergents, estimated phosphorus emissions peaked at around 63.5ktP/year in the 1980s, with about 28ktP/year being discharged in sewage effluent. By 2010, population had increased to 63 million with estimated emissions of 263kt N, 43.6kt P and 1460ktorganicC/year, and an estimated effluent flux of 104kt N, 14.8kt P and 63kt organic C. Despite improvements in wastewater treatment, current levels of nutrient fluxes in sewage effluent are substantially higher than those in the early 20th century.

Prospects for using a full-scale installation for wet combustion of organic wastes in closed life support systems.

The issue of recycling organic wastes in closed life support systems (CLSS) includes both fundamental aspects of environmental safety of the recycled products and their effective involvement in material cycles and technical aspects related to the structure of the system and the crew's demands. This study estimates the effectiveness of wet combustion of different amounts of organic wastes in hydrogen peroxide under application of an alternating current electric field. The study also addresses the possibility of controlling the process automatically. The results show that processing of greater amounts of wastes reduces specific power consumption and shortens the duration of the process, without significantly affecting the level of oxidation of the products. An automatic control system for a semi-commercial installation has been constructed and tested experimentally. The solution of mineralized human wastes prepared in the automatically controlled process in this installation was successfully used to grow radish plants, with the main production parameters being similar to those of the control.

Crack: uma abordagem psicanalítica de seu consumo entre crianças e adolescentes em situação de rua / Crack: a psychoanalytic approach on its consumption among children and adolescents on the street / Crack: un enfoqueppsicoanalítico de su consumo entre los niños y adolescentes que viven en las calles / Crack: une approche psychanalytique de sa consommation chez les enfants et les adolescents vivant dans la rue

O objetivo geral deste artigo foi abordar o consumo de crack em crianças e adolescentes em situação de rua a partir do marco teórico da psicanálise. Delimitou-se como criança e adolescente em situação de rua, aquele que, com ou sem laço familiar, vive parte de seu tempo na rua sem a supervisão de um adulto que se responsabilize por ele. Foram isolados problemas decorrentes da situação de viver na rua - desnutrição, exploração do trabalho infantil, violência sexual, uso abusivo de drogas - e as modificações características da passagem da infância para a adolescência, que consolidam o acesso à vida adulta. Determinou-se, ao longo da argumentação teórica e dos dados empíricos obtidos a partir de pesquisa bibliográfica, que o desencadeamento do consumo de drogas, em especial o crack, na passagem da infância para a adolescência, se dá pelo processo de desvalorização social, de perda fálica associada ao lugar de resto, de refugo, que se instala na camada mais pobre da população brasileira, e que acaba por se transmitir para a criança. A partir dessas considerações, defendeu-se a hipótese de que o consumo abusivo de crack está diretamente associado à ausência de recursos subjetivos - promovidos pela baixa operatividade da função paterna - para lidar com as mudanças típicas desse tempo da constituição do sujeito.

This paper aims to address the crack consumption in children and adolescents on the street from the theoretical framework of psychoanalysis. It was delimited as children and adolescents living on the street, who, with or without family ties, living most of his time on the street without the supervision of an adult who is responsible for it. Were isolated problems arising from the situation of street life - malnutrition, child labor, sexual violence, drug abuse - and the changes characteristic of the passage from childhood to adolescence, which consolidate access to adulthood. It was determined along the theoretical arguments and empirical data that the onset of drug use, especially crack cocaine, in the passage from childhood to adolescence, is through the process of social devaluation, associated with the place of phallic loss furthermore, a place of human waste (outcasted, like garbage), which settles in the poorest population, which is finally transmitted to the child. From these considerations, defended the hypothesis that the abuse of crack is directly associated with absence of subjective resources - promoted by the low operability of the paternal function - to cope with the changes typical of this stage of the subjectivity development.

El objetivo de trabajo es abordar el consumo de crack en los niños y adolescentes en situación de calle desde el psicoanálisis teórico. El trabajo define a los niños y adolescentes en situación de calle, el que, con o sin lazos familiares, que viven la mayor parte de su tiempo en la calle sin la supervisión de un adulto responsable de él. El trabajo pone de relieve los problemas derivados de la situación de vida de la calle - la desnutrición, el trabajo infantil, la violencia sexual, el abuso de drogas - y los cambios de las características de la transición de la niñez a la adolescencia, que consolida el acceso a la vida adulta. El trabajo determinó a través de argumentos teóricos y datos empíricos que el desencadenamiento del consumo de drogas, especialmente el crack en la pasaje de la niñez a la adolescencia, es causada por el proceso de desvalorización social, pérdida fálica asociada con el lugar de refugo que se instala en los estratos más pobres de la población, lo que acaba transmitiendo a el niño. A partir de estas consideraciones, el trabajo defendió la hipótesis de que el consumo abusivo de crack está asociado directamente con la ausencia de los recursos subjetivos - promovido por la baja operatividad de la función paterna - para hacer frente a los cambios propios de esta etapa del desarrollo subjetivo.

Le but de cet article était de répondre à la consommation de crack chez les enfants et les adolescents en situation de rue à partir de la psychanalyse théorique. Le travail définit les enfants et les adolescents vivant dans la rue, qui, avec ou sans liens familiaux, vivant la plupart de leur temps dans la rue sans surveillance d'un adulte responsable. Le travail met en lumière les problèmes découlant de la situation de vie dans la rue - la malnutrition, travail des enfants, les violences sexuelles, la toxicomanie - et des changements dans les caractéristiques de la transition de l'enfance à l'adolescence, consolide l'accès à la vie adulte. Le travail déterminé par des arguments théoriques et empiriques que les médicaments desecadenamiento de consommation, en particulier fissure dans le passage de l'enfance à l'adolescence, est causée par le processus d'altération du fonctionnement social, la perte associée à lieu phallique qui refugo est installé dans les couches les plus pauvres de la population, qui vient de transmettre à l'enfant. A partir de ces considérations, le travail soutenu l'hypothèse selon laquelle l'abus de fissure est directement associée à l'absence de ressources subjectives - promu par la faible disponibilité de la fonction paternelle - pour faire face aux changements typiques de cette étape de développement subjective.