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Offshore hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation are activities developed internationally in the advance of the energy industry. Conflicts generated by incompatibility with others or with social actors, make the approach from Marine Spatial Planning necessary. In Argentina, although it is a process that has been developing since the middle of the 20th century, it was not until 2014 when the National Government promoted the activity. The North Argentine Basin (NAB) constitutes a hydrocarbon exploration area that was delimited in 2018 by Resolution 65/ 2018 . This activity in the NAB has given rise to conflicts between intervening social actors, which was manifested in the Public Hearing (AP1/21) held in July 2021. That is why the objective of this work was to analyze the results of the AP1/21 and contrast them with the opinion of Mar del Plata’s residents. For this, 682 semi-open surveys were carried out, where they were asked about the activity and the AP1/21. As a result, it was obtained that 373 people were expressed in favor (4%) and against (96%) of the project. Topics such as climate change, energy planning, and disagreement with the steps of the participatory process and the environmental impact study were presented. In the case of the surveys, opinions similar to those expressed in the audience were found, corroborating results and conclusions between both processes. In summary, the work allowed us to know not only the opinion of Mar del Plata’s population but also the type of information available on the economic activity analyzed. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11852-022-00896-x.

The city of Montero, through the cooperative utility COSMOL, has successfully implemented on-site sanitation services for part of its population, in parallel to sewer-based services. However, additional solutions, capacity development and strengthening of governance systems are needed to allow for increased sustainability, for both the sewered and non-sewered sanitation services in the city. Technical improvements are still needed in wastewater and excreta management and treatment, to reduce health and environmental impacts. However, optimizing the existing sanitation systems could increase environmental, health and hygiene sustainability. Urine-diverting dry toilets (UDDTs) have the potential to reduce environmental impact the most, once optimized and if urine and faeces are collected and treated for reuse. Local farmers have expressed demand for sanitation reuse products, as long as low price and quality can be guaranteed. From a household perspective, demand exists for high levels of service and maintenance by providers, no matter the type of system, to ensure simple maintenance by users. But the sanitation system still needs to be affordable, match cleanliness expectations, and remain free of odours, mosquitos and rodents. Upscaling on-site sanitation systems depends strongly on the support of the public institutions and resources available, including legal, economic and technical resources, as well as having a long-term vision.

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