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With growing urbanization cities become hotspots for nutrients. Food items are imported, and food residues, including excreta and not-eaten food, are often exported to landfill sites and water bodies. However, urban sanitation systems can be designed to achieve a high degree of nutrient recovery and food security while counteracting current nutrient resources depletion, environmental degradation, and wasteful energy use. This article illustrates how an extended solid waste hierarchy also including human excreta and wastewater can guide actions to save and recover phosphorus (P) by the three sectors: food industry, households, and waste utilities. P use in diets and agricultural production is not part of the analysis, despite the potential to save P. Novel systems thinking and material flow analysis show that waste prevention can replace over 40% of mined P presently used for making fertilizers. Reuse and recycling of P in excreta and food waste can replace another 15–30%, depending on P efficiency from mine to plate. Keeping excreta separated from other wastewater facilitates such measure. Incineration and land filling are deemed the least appropriate measures since mainly P is recovered in the ashes. The European Union (EU) waste management policy is analyzed for real barriers and opportunities for this approach. The EU Parliament policy guidelines were watered down in the EU Commission's Directives, and today most biowastes are still being landfilled or incinerated instead of recovered. An anticipated overcapacity of incineration plants in Europe threatens to attract all combustible materials and therefore, irrevocably, reduce nutrient recovery. On the other hand, reduced generation and enhanced recovery can delay exhaustion of P resources by several centuries and simultaneously reduce environmental degradation.

For decades and even centuries, Swedish towns, prompted by the need for clean water, haddiscussedpotential water systems. Some towns haddevelopedplans, but it was first in the secondhalf of the 19th century that the gradual conversion was made to pipe-boundsystems for water andsanitation. Not until 1863, after towns hadgainedthe authority to collect taxes, borrow money, lay pipes through private compounds, and monitor the urban environment, did infrastructure development become the task of local government. Cholera epidemics and fire protection (and thus lower insurance fees) were among the factors motivating the town councils andproperty owners. Especially from 1875 on, the hygienic value of water was also emphasizedin the effort to enforce public health legislation. Pipes for the systems were importedanddesigns emulated.

Raising environmental awareness among farmers is the key to successfully reaching environmental goals. The present study assessed the knowledge development process and the raising of environmental awareness among 30 farmers from Poland exposed to four approaches aimed to reduce phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) losses to water. The farmers were interviewed with open-ended questions on-farm both before and after the project intervention. As hoped, the farmers attempted to adjust their farm practices to the European Union regulations, which are in some cases supported by subsidies. As a complement, the project offered tools for system-thinking based on farm data and support from agricultural advisors: a) a survey of plant-available P, potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), and soil pH, resulting in soil maps; b) assessment of nitrogen leaching risks from individual fields; c) compilation of a farm-gate balance. Farmers were positive to soil surveys and maps, but had limited understanding of the nutrient balance concept and calculations. They generally relied on their own experiences regarding fertilization rather than on calculated farm nutrient balances and leaching risks. Farmers' understanding and willingness to adopt new approaches to improve nutrient efficiency and reduce negative environmental impacts are discussed.

Raising environmental awareness among farmers is the key to successfully reaching environmental goals. The present study assessed the knowledge development process and the raising of environmental awareness among 30 farmers from Poland exposed to four approaches aimed to reduce phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) losses to water. The farmers were interviewed with open-ended questions on-farm both before and after the project intervention. As hoped, the farmers attempted to adjust their farm practices to the European Union regulations, which are in some cases supported by subsidies. As a complement, the project offered tools for system-thinking based on farm data and support from agricultural advisors: a) a survey of plant-available P, potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), and soil pH, resulting in soil maps; b) assessment of nitrogen leaching risks from individual fields; c) compilation of a farm-gate balance. Farmers were positive to soil surveys and maps, but had limited understanding of the nutrient balance concept and calculations. They generally relied on their own experiences regarding fertilization rather than on calculated farm nutrient balances and leaching risks. Farmers' understanding and willingness to adopt new approaches to improve nutrient efficiency and reduce negative environmental impacts are discussed.