In Ghana, more than 90% of human waste is discharged into the environment, contaminating coastal areas, waterways and the irrigated farms that draw water from them. As part of its effort to create productive synergies between rural and urban areas, IWMI is investigating practical ways to help municipalities in this and other countries develop closed-loop processes that turn waste into useful products for farming communities.
From feces to fertilizer
One approach is to collect and process market waste along with “fecal sludge” – human waste produced by households and pre-treated in on-site pit latrines or septic tanks – into a fertilizer. At the end of 2016, the first large-scale plant in West Africa to produce such organic fertilizer in pellet form began operating in Ghana. It officially opened as a commercial venture in May 2017.
The new plant will help to reduce the environmental impacts by safely converting human waste into Fortifer™, a trademarked fertilizer developed by IWMI and partners. In a process called co-composting, the nutrient-rich fecal sludge is sanitized together with carbon-rich food waste to produce high-quality compost. At full operation, the plant will annually process 12,600 cubic meters (m³) of human waste collected from local latrines into 500 metric tonnes of fertilizer powder and pellets for the agriculture sector.
The plant is a public-private partnership between the Ghanaian municipality, Tema Metropolitan Assembly, and Jekora Ventures Ltd. The municipality contributed the one-hectare site on which the plant now stands, valued at around USD 75,000, while Jekora Ventures committed USD 90,000 to cover operational, maintenance and marketing costs during the estimated three-year business start-up period. IWMI initiated and supported the process with market analysis, technology development and transfer. In trials, the performance of Fortifer™ was shown to match that of other fertilizers costing the same price, while its real value as an organic soil improver will last longer than its fertilizing effect.
Partnerships in the making
In mid-2016, Ghana’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) approved the commercial production of Fortifer™ and agreed on its eligibility for subsidies, enabling it to be produced more competitively. The Ministry commended IWMI for initiatives undertaken to ensure the availability of high-quality compost in the country. To support the production of Fortifer™, Ghana’s Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development committed USD 155,889 towards capital investment in the plant.
“It makes us proud to know that we were able to support the Ghanaian government in its decision to include waste-based composts in its fertilizer subsidy program, which normally only includes chemical fertilizers,” says Olufunke O. Cofie, head of IWMI’s West Africa Office in Ghana. “After the successful facilitation of a public-private partnership for Fortifer™ production in Greater Accra, another three such partnerships are now in progress: involving two plants to transform fecal sludge into Fortifer™ and dry fuel, respectively, and another to exploit the nutrient value of wastewater for fish farming.”
South-South exchange
Based on its experience in Ghana, IWMI is also promoting Fortifer™ as a means to make good use of municipal solid waste in Sri Lanka. Its government has set up more than 115 composting stations, which help to reduce local waste volumes by half. However, most stations do not have the marketing capacity to sell the compost produced. Over the last 3 years, IWMI has signed memoranda of understanding with the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) and the ministries in charge of sanitation and agriculture. The aim is to help the country make its composting stations more viable, based on the production of Fortifer™ and related market assessments.
A large array of field trials are under way to test crop responses for the purpose of developing Fortifer™ application guidelines. The government is very supportive of organic fertilizers, as many Sri Lankans suffer from kidney disease, which some have blamed on agricultural chemicals. To encourage planners and policymakers in other developing countries to also embrace the benefits of co-composting, WLE published the report Co-Composting of Solid Waste and Fecal Sludge for Nutrient and Organic Matter Recovery as part of its series on resource recovery and reuse.
