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Attitudes of food consumers at universities towards recycling human urine as crop fertiliser: A multinational survey dataset

Barton MA 1 , Simha P 1 , Magri ME 2 , Dutta S 3 , Kabir H 4 , Selvakumar A 5 Show all authors , Zhou X 6 , Lv Y 6 , Martin T 7 , Kizos T 8 , Triantafyllou E 8 , Kataki R 9 , Gerchman Y 10 , Herscu-Kluska R 11 , Alrousan D 12 , Dalahmeh S 1 , Goh EG 13 , Elenciuc D 14 , Głowacka A 15 , Korculanin L 16 , Tzeng RV 17 , Ray SS 18 , Ganesapillai M 19 , Niwagaba C 20 , Prouty C 21 , Mihelcic JR 21 , Vinnerås B 1

Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7032, SE-75007 Uppsala, Sweden
  • 2 Department of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil
  • 3 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
  • 4 Department of Agricultural Economics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh 2202, Bangladesh
  • 5 College of Engineering and Technology, Samara University, Ethiopia
  • 6 School of Energy and Environmental Engineering, Beijing Key Laboratory of Resource-oriented Treatment of Industrial Pollutants, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
  • 7 Université Paris-Saclay, INRAE, AgroParisTech, UMR ECOSYS, Avenue Lucien Bretignières, 78850 Thiverval-Grignon, France
  • 8 Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, GR-81100 Mytilene, Greece
  • 9 Department of Energy, Tezpur University, Napam, Tezpur 784 028 Assam, India
  • 10 Department of Biology and Environment, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Haifa at Oranim, Tivon 36006, Israel
  • 11 Oranim College, Kiryat Tivon 36006, Israel
  • 12 Department of Water Management and Environment, Faculty of Natural Resources and Environment, The Hashemite University, P.O. Box 150459, Zarqa 13115, Jordan
  • 13 Faculty of Ocean Engineering Technology and Informatics, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia
  • 14 University of Academy of Sciences of Moldova, Chișinău, Moldova
  • 15 Faculty of Agrobioengineering, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, 15 Akademicka Street, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
  • 16 IADE - Universidade Europeia, Av. D. Carlos I, 4, 1200-649 Lisbon, Portugal
  • 17 International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE), Lund University, Lund, Sweden
  • 18 Institute of Environmental Engineering and Management, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan
  • 19 Mass Transfer Group, School of Chemical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India
  • 20 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology (CEDAT), Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda
  • 21 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Ave., Tampa, Florida 33620, United States
Data Brief, 2021 Apr;35:106794.
PMID: 33604424 DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2021.106794

Abstract

We present here a data set generated from a multinational survey on opinions of university community members on the prospect of consuming food grown with human urine as fertiliser and about their urine recycling perceptions in general. The data set comprises answers from 3,763 university community members (students, faculty/researchers, and staff) from 20 universities in 16 countries and includes demographic variables (age bracket, gender, type of settlement of origin, academic discipline, and role in the university). Questions were designed based on Ajzen's theory of planned behaviour to elicit information about three components of behavioural intention-attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control. Survey questions covered perceived risks and benefits (attitudes), perceptions of colleagues (injunctive social norm) and willingness to consume food grown with cow urine/faeces (descriptive social norm), and willingness to pay a price premium for food grown with human urine as fertiliser (perceived behavioural control). We also included a question about acceptable urine recycling and disposal options and assessed general environmental outlook via the 15-item revised New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale. Data were collected through a standardised survey instrument translated into the relevant languages and then administered via an online form. Invitations to the survey were sent by email to university mailing lists or to a systematic sample of the university directory. Only a few studies on attitudes towards using human urine as fertiliser have been conducted previously. The data described here, which we analysed in "Willingness among food consumers at universities to recycle human urine as crop fertiliser: Evidence from a multinational survey" [1], may be used to further understand potential barriers to acceptance of new sanitation systems based on wastewater source separation and urine recycling and can help inform the design of future sociological studies.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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