Bill Gates thinks toilets are a serious business, and he\u2019s betting big that a reinvention of this most essential of conveniences can save a half million lives and deliver $200 billion-plus in savings.<\/p>\n
The billionaire philanthropist, whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation spent $200 million over seven years funding sanitation research, showcased some 20 novel toilet and sludge-processing designs that eliminate harmful pathogens and convert bodily waste into clean water and fertilizer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe technologies you\u2019ll see here are the most significant advances in sanitation in nearly 200 years,\u201d Gates, 63, told the Reinvented Toilet Expo in Beijing on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Holding a beaker of human excreta that, Gates said, contained as many as 200 trillion rotavirus cells, 20 billion Shigella bacteria, and 100,000 parasitic worm eggs, the Microsoft Corp co-founder explained to a 400-strong crowd that new approaches for sterilizing human waste may help end almost 500,000 infant deaths and save $233 billion annually in costs linked to diarrhea, cholera and other diseases caused by poor water, sanitation and hygiene.<\/p>\n
One approach from the California Institute of Technology that Gates said he finds \u201csuper interesting\u201d integrates an electrochemical reactor to break down water and human waste into fertilizer and hydrogen, which can be stored in hydrogen fuel cells as energy.<\/p>\n
\u2018Substantial Market\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Without cost-effective alternatives to sewers and waste-treatment facilities, urbanisation and population growth will add to the burden. In some cities, more than half the volume of human waste escapes into the environment untreated.<\/p>\n Every dollar invested in sanitation yields about $5.50 in global economic returns, according to the World Health Organisation.<\/p>\n \u201cHuman waste that is properly handled can be a very economically attractive investment due to the health benefits,\u201d said Guy Hutton, a senior adviser for water, sanitation and hygiene with Unicef in New York, in an interview.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the unmet need of 2.3 billion people still without basic sanitation, there is a potentially very substantial market and economic gain to be had.\u201d<\/p>\n The reinvented toilet market, which has attracted companies including Japan\u2019s LIXIL Group, could generate $6 billion a year worldwide by 2030, according to Gates.<\/p>\n \u2018Golden Opportunity\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cInnovative companies have a golden opportunity to do well by doing good,\u201d LIXIL President Kinya Seto said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can help jump-start a new era of safe sanitation for the 21st century by developing solutions that can leapfrog today\u2019s existing infrastructure, functioning anywhere and everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Companies displaying their sanitation technologies included China\u2019s Clear, CRRC Corp. and EcoSan; Sedron Technologies LLC from the US; SCG Chemicals, a unit of Thailand\u2019s Siam Cement Pcl; and India\u2019s Eram Scientific Solutions Pvt, Ankur Scientific Energy Technologies Pvt, and Tide Technocrats Pvt, the Gates Foundation said in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n The initial demand for the reinvented toilet will be in places like schools, apartment buildings, and community bathroom facilities. As adoption of these multi-unit toilets increases, and costs decline, a new category of reinvented household toilets will become available, the Gates Foundation said.<\/p>\n \u201cOur goal is to be at 5 cents a day of cost,\u201d Gates said in a telephone interview before the exhibition.<\/p>\n Small-scale waste treatment plants, called omni-processors, may be suited for uses beyond human waste management – such as for managing effluent from intensive livestock production – because of its low marginal running costs relative to the value of the fertilizer and clean water it produces, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe value of those outputs exceeds the operating cost,\u201d Gates said. \u201cSo you\u2019ll actually be looking for sources of biomass that keep it fully busy.\u201d<\/p>\n Gates, who with wife Melinda has given more than $35.8 billion to the foundation since 1994, said he became interested in sanitation about a decade ago after he stopped working full time at Microsoft.<\/p>\n \u201cI never imagined that I\u2019d know so much about poop,\u201d Gates said in remarks prepared for the Beijing event. \u201cAnd I definitely never thought that Melinda would have to tell me to stop talking about toilets and fecal sludge at the dinner table.\u201d<\/p>\n
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