Sustainable Futures: a transdisciplinary research project for dishwasher wastewater recycling in domestic vegetable production

The integration of edible vegetable production in the household environment, with the use of treated kitchen wastewater for its irrigation, is a promising strategy to decrease water consumption and the amount of wastewater to be discharged, grow quality vegetable products, reduce food transportation costs and improve citizen’s environmental awareness. Domestic wastewater is often rich in nutrients. Thus, a bio-filtration treatment, taking advantage of photosynthetic-heterotrophic microbial consortia, can enable the uptake of the nutrient content for "urban agriculture" practices. The paper shows the main results of a transdisciplinary research project that aims to reuse dishwasher wastewater to grow vegetables and ornamental plants for domestic use by an engineered biological filter integrated into a prototype developed for eco-design future application scenarios. In this way, reducing water and fertiliser consumption it is possible to produce healthy and safe food on a zero-mile basis, in line with the Agenda 2030 targets of Sustainable Development Goals 2 and 6 (Zero Hunger and Clean Water and Sanitation).