Flexible and Resource-Recovery Sanitation Solutions: What Hindered Their Implementation? A 40-Year Swedish Perspective

Abstract

Although Sweden pioneered in the development of resource-recovery sanitation solutions, and there has existed a political awareness of such solutions since the 1990s, their implementation has been slow. We adopt a historical (40-year) perspective and use the main journal of the Swedish sanitation sector as source material to go into depth why this has been the case. Central explanations emerge in terms of previously strong governmental control and continuously tightened environmental requirements that ceaselessly have expanded and strengthened the large-scale centralized sanitation system. In parallel, the sector has continuously been reminded of the shortcomings of alternative (and smaller) solutions and of the tension between recovery and treatment/risk management. The study highlights the possibility of achieving long-term and profound impacts from policy mixes, as well as the strong influence of the sum of challenges and choices over a long time, on today’s perspectives and propensity for change.