Tool

Resource Recovery Toolbox

The Resource Recovery Toolbox is an open-access online platform that helps practitioners, planners, and researchers identify, compare, and apply decision-support tools for planning and implementing resource recovery from sanitation and organic waste streams. Developed by SEI in collaboration with partners, it makes existing tools more discoverable, accessible, and actionable to accelerate the transition to circular and climate-resilient sanitation and waste management systems.

Photo: Westersoe / Getty

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Last updated on 18 November 2025

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Daniel Ddiba / daniel.ddiba@sei.org

Resource Recovery Toolbox

Across the world, cities are facing mounting challenges related to waste management, water scarcity, and climate change. Yet, these same waste streams—wastewater, faecal sludge, food waste, and other organic materials—are valuable sources of water, energy, and nutrients. Harnessing these resources is key to achieving circular economy and sustainability goals, but finding the right planning and assessment tools to support such initiatives remains difficult.

The Resource Recovery Toolbox was created to bridge this gap. It brings together a curated collection of digital and methodological tools for resource recovery, making it easier for professionals to locate, understand, and apply them in practice. Whether users are assessing the potential for nutrient recovery, designing a biogas system, evaluating the circularity of a sanitation service chain, or teaching about sustainable waste management, the Toolbox provides a single entry point to find relevant resources.

The Toolbox employs AI-powered search, tagging, and categorization functions based on advanced taxonomies and ontologies, helping users navigate a growing collection of tools, datasets, guidelines, and case studies, among other resources. By doing so, it enhances both the visibility and usability of the many decision-support resources that have been developed over the past decade in the fields of sanitation, waste management, and circular economy.

Explore the Toolbox at www.resource-recovery.info. It’s free and open for all.

The Resource Recovery Toolbox is designed for a wide audience of professionals, practitioners, and learners engaged in the transition toward circular and climate-resilient systems.

Municipal and utility professionals – Urban planners, engineers, and managers working in sanitation, waste management, and environmental services can use the Toolbox to identify planning, design, and assessment tools relevant to their local context.

Consultants and private sector practitioners – Environmental and engineering consultants can discover practical frameworks, guidelines, and models to support feasibility studies, project design, and implementation of resource recovery solutions.

Researchers, educators, and students – The Toolbox provides structured access to case studies, datasets, and academic resources that support research, teaching, and learning on resource recovery, sustainable sanitation, and circular economy.

Policymakers and development partners – Decision-makers and donor agencies can use the Toolbox to identify tools that inform policy development, programme design, and investment in sustainable urban infrastructure.

By catering to both tool users and tool developers, the Resource Recovery Toolbox fosters a growing global community that connects innovation with implementation.

Contents of the Toolbox

The Resource Recovery Toolbox hosts a diverse range of content designed to support all stages of planning and implementation:

Software tools – for resource flow analysis, system design, scenario modelling, and cost-benefit assessments.
Assessment frameworks and guidelines – for evaluating technologies, sustainability, governance, and enabling environments.
Design tools and templates – to support feasibility studies, infrastructure design, and circular business planning.
Datasets and portals – open-access data on waste streams, resource potential, and spatial or demographic information.
Case studies and implementation examples – real-world applications of resource recovery projects from cities worldwide.
Manuals and technical guides – step-by-step guidance and best practice recommendations.
Multimedia and learning materials – including videos, podcasts, and training content.

Each tool is systematically tagged by topic (e.g. biogas, composting, water reuse), waste stream (e.g. wastewater, faecal sludge, food waste), project phase (e.g. planning, implementation, monitoring), and region, enabling intuitive search and comparison.

Platform features

AI-powered search and recommendations, helping users find tools that match their needs.
User-friendly navigation with clean design and clear categorization.
A direct submission function for tool or resource developers to suggest new content that should be added to the collection.

Co-design and development
The Resource Recovery Toolbox was developed through a collaborative and participatory process. The SEI team worked closely with partners, practitioners, and researchers from around the world to design a platform that is practical, intuitive, and relevant for real-world use.

Early development drew on insights from SEI’s UrbanCircle project, which mapped and analysed existing decision-support tools for resource recovery. These findings informed the taxonomy used to structure the Toolbox and guided the curation of its initial 24 tools. The design and functionality were refined through user feedback sessions with professionals in Sweden and Kenya, ensuring that the Toolbox responds to diverse user needs and contexts.

Funded by the Swedish Research Council Formas, the project was implemented by SEI in collaboration with the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA), with technical support from Dotwerkstatt and Baobab Tech.

The Resource Recovery Toolbox is a living platform that continues to grow and evolve. New tools, case studies, and datasets are added regularly, and the underlying taxonomy is updated to reflect emerging trends in circular sanitation, resource recovery, and sustainable waste management.

Future updates will include expanded thematic coverage, enhanced user analytics, and deeper integration with global networks working on areas related to resource recovery. Tool developers and practitioners are encouraged to contribute by submitting new tools or sharing experiences of using existing ones.

By building a collaborative global community around resource recovery, the Toolbox aims to support innovation, learning, and action toward more sustainable cities and circular systems.

To suggest a tool or provide feedback, contact us at [email protected], or the SEI team listed on this Tool webpage.