Abstract
Urban agriculture, due to its location, can play a key role in recycling urban waste streams, promoting nutrient recycling, and increasing sustainability of food systems. This research investigated the integration of brewery wastewater treatment through anaerobic digestion with substrate-based soilless agriculture. An experiment was conducted to study the performance of three different crops (mustard greens (Brassica juncea), basil (Ocimum basilicum), and lettuce (Lactuca sativa) grown with digested and raw brewery wastewater as fertilizer treatments. Mustard greens and lettuce grown in digested wastewater produced similar yields as the inorganic fertilizer control treatment, while basil had slightly lower yields. In all cases, crops in the digested wastewater treatments produced higher yields than raw wastewater or the no fertilizer control, indicating that nutrients in the brewery wastewater can be recovered for food production and diverted from typical urban waste treatment facilities.
Highlights
Urban agriculture is experiencing a resurgence in popularity in many parts of the world
Advocates argue that finding ways to recycle the organic fraction of waste streams to agricultural production in urban areas will reduce soil and water pollution, and prove central to both urban waste management and agricultural production [9]
Mustard greens and lettuce plants grown using digested wastewater produced a similar amount of total above ground biomass when compared to plants in the inorganic fertilizer treatment, while raw wastewater plants performed at the same level as those in the no fertilizer treatment (Table 1)
Summary
Urban agriculture is experiencing a resurgence in popularity in many parts of the world. Beyond the social benefits urban agriculture can provide, such as creating opportunities for community building, jobs, and education, as well as increased access to healthy food [1], urban agriculture is gaining interest due to the possible environmental benefits it can provide to municipalities. Some of those benefits include increased green spaces, reduction of food imports, and nutrient recycling [2,3,4,5]; the latter is the focus of this paper. Advocates argue that finding ways to recycle the organic fraction of waste streams to agricultural production in urban areas will reduce soil and water pollution, and prove central to both urban waste management and agricultural production [9]
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