Bill Gates Has Spent Rs 1,460 Crore To Build A New Toilet That Doesn't Need A Sewage System

During a speech at an event in Beijing on Tuesday, American billionaire philanthropist brought with him a jar of poop. No, he's not lost his marbles, he was just using it as a prop for a new toilet his foundation has developed, that functions even without sewers.

Images courtesy: Reuters

The speech was at the Reinvented Toilet Expo, something the Microsoft founder was a part of thanks to his charity's work towards building an economical toilet for developing countries. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent about $200 million to fund research projects in this direction, and they expect to spend at least another $200 million before the toilet is ready. But the concept they do have so far is fascinating.

"It's a good reminder that in (the jar) there could be 200 trillion rotavirus cells, 20 billion Shigella bacteria, and 100,000 parasitic worm eggs," Gates said, pointing at his jar of poop. It's an important point he's making, considering the number of diseases poor sanitation can cause. It kills 50,000 children under the age of five each year and costs the world over $200 billion annually in healthcare costs and lost income.

The Gates Foundation's toilet then, is meant to function in regions where proper toilets are too expensive or not feasible to set up because of non-existent sewer systems. "The current toilet simply sends the waste away in the water, whereas these toilets don't have the sewer," Gates said. "They take both the liquids and solids and do chemical work on it, including burning it in most cases." To put it simply, the toilets have an electrochemical reactor that can break down water and human waste into fertilizer for fields and hydrogen, which can be stored in hydrogen fuel cells as a green energy source. Even the little water used is treated enough to reuse for flushing, or for irrigation.

The idea is to first install these toilets in places like hospitals, schools, and apartment complexes, before costs come down enough for them to be cheap enough to enter individual homes.