Bill Gates Wants To Reinvent the Toilet 338
redletterdave writes "Bill Gates, the man responsible for bringing software to the masses with Microsoft and Windows, has plans to reinvent and popularize another industry: Sanitation. Gates, whose philanthropic efforts have helped bring clean water and resources to developing countries via the foundation created by he and his wife Melinda, said at the 'Reinvent The Toilet Fair' in Seattle on Wednesday that he plans to build a toilet that's better suited to developing countries in an effort to cut down on disease and death in those regions. 'Inventing new toilets is one of the most important things we can do to reduce child deaths and disease and improve people's lives,' Gates said. 'It is also something that can help wealthier countries conserve fresh water for other important purposes besides flushing.'"
Science Insider has some information on the winning designs from this year.
Re:Fertilizer (Score:5, Informative)
Night soil [wikipedia.org], un-composed, is a health risk because pathogens are returned un-treated to the food production cycle. Composting it into "humanure" [wikipedia.org] is a good way to regain the nutrient value in a local closed system while reducing artificial fertilization inputs.
Composting toilets exist, so I'm not really sure what role Gates would have, except maybe simplifying design and streamlining manufacturing and distribution so that they can become cheap and common in the areas of interest. Or else using some other technique besides composting for sanitization.... but that would require some kind of energy source to Pasteurize the waste. Hard to beat just letting composting microorganisms crank up the heat using just the nutrients in the waste.
Re:Better design for Europe (Score:5, Informative)
The worst was one that had a flat shelf to dump on and the water would wash it off. Yeah, good luck getting that loaf to wash away. What the hell? Sorry for the shitty post, but this is the topic we were presented with.
That's a German thing. It's intended to let you inspect it for health reasons. [wikipedia.org] ... I'm shocked that I know this. What the hell!?
Lessons to be learned [Re:Why?] (Score:5, Informative)
There are already a multitude of solutions available, eg. bio-friendly bags that turn poop into fertilizer and just need you dig a hole.
And the "multitude of solutions available" don't always work.
Here's a "lessons learned" article on the Daxing Ecological Community [chinadialogue.net] toilet experience; hope the Gates foundation is willling to learn from other peoples' failures: http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/5068-Eco-toilet-scheme-ends-in-failure [chinadialogue.net]
Re:Well why not (Score:5, Informative)
I could have sworn I saw this exact same story at slashdot a year ago... and someone in that thread made the exact same comment. Is this story a dupe, or a rerun?
Re:Well why not (Score:5, Informative)