Reinventing the toilet

[mr friendly guy]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-15/b ... .svl=news5

Bill Gates on quest to reinvent the toilet
Updated 5 hours 35 minutes ago

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has launched a search for a new toilet better suited to developing countries to help prevent disease and death.

A charitable foundation founded by Gates and his wife kicked off a "Reinvent the Toilet Fair" in Seattle and awarded prizes for promising innovations.

"Toilets are extremely important for public health and, when you think of it, even human dignity," Gates said.

"The flush toilets we use in the wealthy world are irrelevant, impractical and impossible for 40 per cent of the global population, because they often don't have access to water, and sewers, electricity, and sewage treatment systems."

The Toilet Fair was described as a swirl of about 200 inventors, designers, investors, partners and others passionate about creating safe, effective, and inexpensive waste management systems.

Universities from Britain, Canada, and the United States were awarded prizes in a competition launched a year ago challenging inventors to come up with a better toilet.

First place went to the California Institute of Technology for designing a solar-powered toilet that generates hydrogen gas and electricity.

Loughborough University came in second for a toilet that transforms waste into biological charcoal, minerals, and clean water.

Third place went to the University of Toronto for a toilet that sanitises human waste and recovers minerals and water.

Gates said approximately 2.5 billion people worldwide do not have access to safe sanitation systems and this contributes to severe health problems.

"Beyond a question of human dignity, this lack of access also endangers people's lives, creates an economic and a health burden for poor communities, and hurts the environment," Gates said.

Food or water tainted with faecal matter causes intestinal diseases that kill 1.5 million children annually - a figure higher than deaths from AIDS and malaria combined, according to Gates.

"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."

Doesn't sound quite as glamourous as some other initiatives, but I am impressed with one that can transform waste into minerals and clean water.

[Irbis]

Doesn't sound quite as glamourous as some other initiatives, but I am impressed with one that can transform waste into minerals and clean water.

Glamorous? This actually makes more sense and can have bigger impact than a lot of these other initiatives, especially in the long run...

[Ziggy Stardust]

I still find it amazing that, at least compared to Steve Jobs, there is a lot of negative public perception surrounding Bill Gates, when he has done immeasurable good through his charitable contributions.

And initiatives like this prove he isn't just one of those attention-seeking celebrities who just dumps a pile of money on some vague charity for "children," this is a very sensible thing to do if you are actually trying to make things better.

But, hey, Jobs made the fucking IPAD people!!!!!1

(EDIT: I don't mean this as a high-jack, so I apologize if it comes off as such. My point is not to demonize Steve Jobs, but rather to point out that Bill Gates continues to do good things, and I wish his wider public perception reflected that)

[mr friendly guy]

Doesn't sound quite as glamourous as some other initiatives, but I am impressed with one that can transform waste into minerals and clean water.

Glamorous? This actually makes more sense and can have bigger impact than a lot of these other initiatives, especially in the long run...

Well glamorous is a subjective thing, but I am willing to bet no one thinks of toilets as awesome as say solar panels, wind turbines or freaking tablet PCs. Nevertheless I am impressed with some of these toilets.

[Skgoa]

I still find it amazing that, at least compared to Steve Jobs, there is a lot of negative public perception surrounding Bill Gates, when he has done immeasurable good through his charitable contributions.

And initiatives like this prove he isn't just one of those attention-seeking celebrities who just dumps a pile of money on some vague charity for "children," this is a very sensible thing to do if you are actually trying to make things better.

But, hey, Jobs made the fucking IPAD people!!!!!1

(EDIT: I don't mean this as a high-jack, so I apologize if it comes off as such. My point is not to demonize Steve Jobs, but rather to point out that Bill Gates continues to do good things, and I wish his wider public perception reflected that)

That's because people like to see themselves as either a rebell - sticking it to The Man themselves - or at least as rooting for the plucky underdog. Jobs was a saint as long as Apple was failing. Microsoft was the biggest bully in the sand box for quite a while. Let's face it, almost all tech people still around are to young to remember that IBM, Atari and Apple were way less open to competition on their platforms and that one of the biggest advantages Microsoft had in the early days was that they let everyone earn good money on MS-DOS/Windows. Then they leveraged their huge market share in anti-trust-violating ways. In many was, Microsoft is still better - or at least way less evil - then their competitors. But they are the designated bad guy. It's simply not cool to believe anything else.

[Skgoa]

Ghetto edit: That you used Steve Jobs as an example is interesting, too. For quite a while nobody hated Jobs or Apple. Macs were seen as niche products for artists and media people. It used to be that nerds would go "you use windows? don't you know how bad it is and how evil Microsoft is... yadda yadda yadda..." Then suddenly, around the time the iPhone and unibody MacBooks came out, Apple became cool. So now it's "you have a Mac/iPod/iPhone? don't you know how bad it is and how evil Apple is... yadda yadda yadda..." That malicious apps can use the GPS to track you is seen as proof that Steve Jobs is the devil but that your Blackberry is spying on you (RIM is quite open about that) is OK, since Blackberrys are the cool business guy toy. Oh and that iPhones don't give you root access is EVUUUL!!111 but that no other phone before gave you any kind of access can be ignored. Funny coincidence that practically all mobile malware is only infecting Android phones or hacked iPhones...
That Google's hole business is built on spying on you is also no problem, because their company motto is "do no evil". If you listen to the nerds, Chrome is much better (in an ethics sense) than Safari, because it's open source. That it's also openly spying on you is of no concern, even though the web engine inside Safari, WebKit, is also open source.

[Skgoa]

another ghetto edit: But then again, Google is the plucky little guy who is ranking websites on their objective merits, without censoring anything, who is sticking it to the search engine giant Yahoo. Right?

[Hamstray]

I know it's not a priority, but I would suggest also inventing toilets that can automatically analyze stool samples. Would be expensive and not feasible for developing countries though, rather useful for disease control in first world countries.

[Broomstick]

The downside to that otherwise excellent idea is that the First World has little in the way of human-waste spread disease and it's the Third World that needs the toilet analyzer.

Although analyzing toilets might have a niche application in hospitals...