Gates Foundation Initiative To Revolutionize The Toilet For Clean Drinking Water

The newest project from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is set to revolutionize the toilet.

Together with the German government, the project aims to provide 800,000 people in Kenya with access to sanitation facilities and clean drinking water for 200,000 people, reports TIME.

According to the magazine, Bill Gates says it's time to leave the era of the classic toilet behind, and he points out that despite all of the recent achievements, 40 percent of the world's population, or some 2.5 billion people, still live without proper means of flushing away excrement.

Toilets aren't the only focus for the Foundation. The Associated Press reports that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is planning to provide a dozen researchers with an additional $1 million over five years to test life-saving ideas, such as using microwaves to kill malaria parasites. The toilets seem to be another unique focus for the Foundation, with potentially huge results.

TIME reports that the lack of sanitation facilities increases the spread of disease, and UNICEF estimates that globally, 1.1 billion people don't have access to any kind of toilet or means of safely eliminating waste. At least 1.2 million children under the age of five die from diarrhea each year, caused by undrinkable water.

The project is working on two important initiatives. The first is to construct sanitation facilities in rural areas and slums, and the other is a research project that is giving grants to scientists who come up with new ideas for using human excrement. TIME writes:

In view of the world's limited water resources, both the Gates Foundation and German Development Policy support various projects for dry toilets that do not use water to flush and that separate excrement from urine in order to dry it.

World-wide access to adequate sanitation is a long time goal for the Gates Foundation. At the Techonomy conference last year, Gates took the stage to discuss something most people shy away from, reports TechCrunch:

"We're gonna have a breakthrough in the latrines," he continued. He said that while the flushable toilet is the gold standard, it isn't efficient at all. Someone is going to fix that, according to Gates.

According to TechCrunch, Gates read many books on the subject, and later discussed investing in sanitation. "When it comes to things like investing in new toilets, not much money goes into that. You end up with the low IQ guy on the toilets."

The Gates Foundation has a strong history of philanthropic projects. In 2008, the organization began helping thousands of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia grow more productive, profitable and sustainable crops. Since 2006, they have committed more that $1.5 billion in grants to agricultural development efforts. Just last week, Reuters reported that the Foundation received a boost when investor Warren Buffett donated $1.78 billion to several charities, with over $19 million going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Comments

[dbrett480]

01:14 PM on 08/11/2011

Great idea. It's crazy to think what kind of advancements the First World has over the Third World. Refrigeration and proper disposal of excrement will go far in raising the life expectancy of these countries.

[FeralForever]

08:09 AM on 07/25/2011

Give them a form of litter which will sterilize waste and kill microbes which will make it acceptable for burial without harming groundwater or the land. And for gawds sake, give them BIRTH CONTROL. It is a crime against humanity to bring helpless children into a world that is so hostile to them, where they have nothing to look forward to except grinding poverty, hunger and disease. This is just as important as toilets, Mr. Gates.

[EmilyRose 85]

11:49 AM on 07/23/2011

I remember reading a book a few years ago that demonstrated poor waste management systems are an achilles heel to preventing infectious disease outbreaks worldwide. The inadequate systems tend to contaminate drinking water creating a self-reinforcing cycle while disposal of waste poses a major environmental threat. This sounds like a commendable effort.

And to those saying he should help the US first, remember, pandemic diseases do not apply for visas before crossing national borders. Efforts to prevent the spread of disease and protect the environment will benefit the world.

[lambdin1]

09:16 AM on 07/16/2011

I wish the foundation luck. Here in Denver the city spent millions in laying pipe to water the interchanges with "gray" water. After spending millions the project was dropped. Why? It is uncertain but the city just let it die quietly and the interchanges are brown, brrown, brown.

[bhamnikwa]

05:56 AM on 07/16/2011

Well, I just want to commend the Foundation. They have opened new job opportunities also.
Now plumbing companies can start springing up creating jobs unclogging them toilets.
Hey, just goes to show what helping hands can have on the entirety of a civilization.

[Barry Dennis]

04:45 PM on 07/15/2011

Again, while giving food to people is commendable, population planning and assistance is more productive. We can't expect to increase standards of living, including health, education, opportunity, unless we understand that scarce resources go further when applied to stable populations.
Combining increasing food QUALITY and population planning will increase standards of living. Increasing educational opportunities and health care for stable populations increases standards of living.
Funding and assisting increasing populations is a no-win situation, since the demand will ALWAYS exceed the availability of scarce resources.
Start with population planning and management assistance and good things happen...starting right away.

[alanramsey]

06:15 AM on 07/15/2011

It takes a liberal like Bill Gates to promote benevolence worldwide in true American spirit. With the likes of the Gates Foundation and We the People taxpayers providing hundreds of billions in humanitarian aid worldwide, I'd say our "evil liberal socialist" American system of "evil liberal benevolence" works pretty danged good for secular humanistic societal progressivism. Good job, Bill and Melinda, for standing up for Liberal Values.

[kareemachan]

11:40 AM on 07/15/2011

#14!

[my4salebox]

11:22 PM on 07/15/2011

Agreed. The other sides think helping is shipping crates of Bibles.

[Buck Buckster]

06:10 AM on 07/15/2011

Yeah, Gates plans on inventing postage-paid dixie cups w/lids to carry around and use as needed. Once filled simply drop them in the mail! Odd, but most seem to have 1600 Pennsylvania Ave on the pre-printed address!

[kareemachan]

11:41 AM on 07/15/2011

Once again, a bagger tro// trying to be funny is a sad, sad thing to observe. Don't worry, I'm sure that some day a humor implant will be perfected.

[mavric1015]

01:03 PM on 07/15/2011

....says the tro// that just went throught the last ten posts and belittled everyone.....

[chizbo whitnsnatcher]

06:02 AM on 07/15/2011

GATES needs to get out of this country if he cant help out at home get OUT he makes me sick

[mdcityghost]

09:05 AM on 07/15/2011

Sounds like you want a bailout from Mr. Gates. I'm sure you have a better reason for one than the starving masses in the third world, right?

[TFlint]

09:38 AM on 07/15/2011

Your heartless attitude makes us all sick.

[ccasey1938]

05:40 AM on 07/15/2011

I love the headline....time to leave the toilet BEHIND !!....LOL

[Al Schrader]

05:35 AM on 07/15/2011

Actually saves our lives too. Those rat hole countries are the source of most new killer diseases...Al-

[kareemachan]

11:43 AM on 07/15/2011

"rat hole countries" How empathic you aren't.

[jgesselberty]

05:26 AM on 07/15/2011

First thing to flush in the new toilet? Windows Vista. I guess you have to invent new excrement, before you can invent a new toilet.

[bradwindley]

05:05 AM on 07/15/2011

Well, now that we have been told that our development of the “Crapper” has become obsolete in today’s developed and underdeveloped worlds we can look forward to a better mouse trap! However, this article says very little and does not tell us the direction, basis for new technology, cost of the technology relative to existing, and or where to get this new dry toilet. Basically, it is the number of individuals producing waste and not our disposal procedures that make the problem. So perhaps the issue should be dealt with by increased efforts toward birth control. Most cultures have used waste of all kinds to fertilize fields for years and many still do. When the products are sterilized, dried, and produced in to “night soil” people still cringe in their anal retentive wasteful ways. Please use your articles to inform on the depth and continent of the issue and not tantalize with surface thin information.

[harmonie555]

05:03 AM on 07/15/2011

Compotable toilets hae been successfully used for decades, and would be a much more efficient way to go. Clivus Multrum toilets were developed in the early 1960's and are even installed for commercial use.

[mhwyman7]

04:52 AM on 07/15/2011

I believe Mr. Gates needs to relieve himself he's full of something.

[kareemachan]

11:45 AM on 07/15/2011

So you feel the need to denigrate somebody who is trying to help other people? Are you honestly that small of a person? Sad, that.