Diverting urine from wastewater streams can provide many environmental benefits. The majority of nutrients in municipal wastewater is found in urine, yet urine accounts for 1% of the wastewater volume. Recycling nutrients from urine is particularly attractive due to the projected depletion of Earth’s phosphate reserves within 50-100 years. Urine diversion can also save costs and reduce pollution associated with wastewater treatment. Recovering nutrients at the source will reduce the required nutrient removal at the treatment plant and may reduce the mass of nutrients released to surface waters. Finally, urine diversion can reduce water use as urine-diverting toilets and waterless urinals require minimal flushing. Before urine-derived fertilizers can be widely applied, effective processes are needed to remove contaminants present in urine. Unprocessed urine, while it may be high in nutrient content, has microorganisms and pharmaceuticals that could be harmful to ecosystems and to humans. Urine can be transformed to fertilizer with long-term storage, heating, or by precipitating the nutrients out of the urine as minerals (<i>e.g.,</i> struvite). Previous research has focused on the fate of common enteric pathogens through these processes, but little work has focused on the fate of viruses excreted in urine. Polyomaviruses have received relatively little attention in source-separated urine research, despite the fact that they infect the urinary tract and can be excreted in urine at very high levels. This study aims to determine the fate of the pathogenic human polyomavirus that is found in urine at high levels through treatment for fertilizer use. Through tissue culture infectivity assays, the fate of the dsDNA BK polyomavirus has been determined in stored urine and compared to human virus surrogate bacteriophages. Initial results show that polyomavirus inactivation in urine is very different than the dsDNA bacteriophage surrogates, despite their similar genome types. Here, we seek to identify the inactivation mechanisms responsible for the unique inactivation kinetics of polyomavirus in stored urine. We have conducted inactivation experiments with controlled pH and ammonia levels, with pasteurized urine, and have probed structural changes in the polyomavirus particle before and after inactivation in stored urine. Our results have important implications for the common use of virus surrogates to predict the fate of human viruses in various environmental samples.

Fate of human BK polyomavirus through urine diverted for fertilizer

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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