Upcycling human excrement: the gut microbiome to soil microbiome axis.

ABSTRACT: Human excrement composting (HEC) is a sustainable strategy for human excrement (HE) management that recycles nutrients and mitigates health risks while reducing reliance on freshwater, fossil fuels, and fertilizers. A mixture of HE and bulking material was collected from 15 composting toilets and composted as 15 biological replicates in modified 19-liter buckets under mesophilic conditions with weekly sampling for one year. We hypothesized that (i) the microbiome of 1 year old compost would resemble that of a soil and/or food and landscape waste compost microbiome more closely than the original HE; and (ii) the human fecal indicators, Escherichia coli and Clostridium perfringens, would be undetectable after 52 weeks using qPCR and culturing. This investigation identified uniq

SUBMITTER: Meilander J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12393218 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature