Gates Foundation spent $200M funding toilet research

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-06/bill-gates-aims-to-save-233-billion-by-reinventing-the-toilet

by aportnoy • 8 years ago

457 270 8 years ago

black6• 8 years ago

I recommend The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins. The definitive guide to humanure composting, and the best reference for general composting I've read.

forapurpose• 8 years ago

Gates does wonderful things with his philanthropy. I notice that he doesn't invest in any social issues or in politics, even when the politics is directly related (e.g., does he lobby the politicians or try to move the public regarding education funding?). Why not? Is it a policy?

Prior generations of philanthropists invested heavily in peace and justice, for example, including the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Certainly our society today has major problems in those areas - arguably we have great success with tech, which he does invest in, and have been terrible and social and political issues. Also, those problems in some ways directly harm Gates' goals (for example, U.S. political and racial issues greatly affect U.S. education), in other ways they lead to policies, such as nationalist economics, that will reduce economic activity and thus investment in these issues, and in yet in other ways the problems impose costs on people that dwarf the benefits Gates' programs provide - the oppression of Western-backed dictators and the cost of potential warfare being among them.

I realize I've assumed it's a policy of Gates', but does anyone have real knowledge about why he avoids those issues?

darawk• 8 years ago

Gates does wonderful things with his philanthropy. I notice that he doesn't invest in any social issues or in politics, even when the politics is directly related (e.g., does he lobby the politicians or try to move the public regarding education funding?). Why not? Is it a policy?

I believe that is on purpose. He doesn't want his work to become politicized in the way that others have (e.g. George Soros, Kochs). From a purely philanthropic point of view, I think this is the right move. He probably takes the view that if you make people's lives better and give them good education, the rest will follow, in the long run.

mitko• 8 years ago

According to https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/General-Informat... they do not fund “Political campaigns and legislative lobbying efforts”

As to reasons, why, I am not sure but I imagine there is a pragmatic angle to it in addition to reputation and other considerations. Investing in politics increases the risk that the funds get wasted if the political climate changes.

TangoTrotFox• 8 years ago

Politics is extremely divisive and, even more importantly, is perhaps no longer a major vessel to enact meaningful longterm change. There is of course the issue of one decade's change being overwritten by the next decade's party. But there's something more fundamental. In times past government was able to enact huge changes, because government enacted and enforced policies that directly harmed society. Slavery is the most obvious one. Government worked as an enforcer for slavery and was equally able to end it with little more than a vote and stroke of a pen. But in today's era I think we've started to reach an era of sharply diminishing returns for governmental action because the issues are ones that are less systemic and, in any case, cannot be directly solved by government in any completely clear way.

For instance you mention education. If you poll most people on our state of education in the US the results would have little to nothing to do with reality. And that reality is that we already spend an immense amount on it - more than nearly anywhere in the world. This isn't a proxy for population size, I am referring to cost per student of course. And this also isn't just a proxy for ridiculous university costs. If you look at only education costs outside of university, we are the 5th biggest spender in the world. And similarly this isn't a proxy for private spending with wealthier folks sending their kids to private institutions. If you compare just our public spending on this same group of education, we end up 7th in the world - comparing just our public spending to everywhere else's public + private spending. And as an aside, those costs are all normalized to account for the fact that a dollar goes a lot further in many places than the US - meaning we are indeed comparing apples to apples, by multiplying other nations' nominal spending.

All numbers mentioned here from the OECD data [1]. They list the private/public spending in GDP relative ratios which does silly things like put South Africa and Costa Rica as the world leaders in education, but you can convert those figures into something useful. For instance in the US our GDP relative share of public spending on education outside of university is 3.207. Our GDP relative share of private spending on education outside of university is 0.307. Therefore of all our spending on non-university education, 3.207/(3.207+0.307) = 91.3% is public. You can now take this and apply it to our gross spend on non-university education ($12,424.3 dollars per student) to see that we publicly spend 12423.3 * .913 = $11,342 per student per year on education outside of university - which leads to our public spending being higher than every other nation's, excepting 6, public+private spending

The point of this is that most people think that we just need to spend more money on education and everything would be dandy. No, our problems are more fundamental and require solutions that are in no way obvious. Bill Gates, though I do not particularly agree with his direction, is working towards trying to create these very sort of solutions. And these solutions, should he be correct, are what actually have the possibility of enacting real longterm change.

[1] https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/education-spending.htm

phot0n2• 8 years ago

Syndicalism is one possible solution, like what's being done in Jackson, MS [1]

[1] https://cooperationjackson.org

rypskar• 8 years ago

> I notice that he doesn't invest in any social issues or in politics

I would argue that he do invest a lot in social issues and politics, but that he invest in fixing the cause not the symptom. Improving education and reducing poverty is, in my opinion at least, one of the best ways to improve the causes leading to a lack of peace and justice. Putting more money in the pockets of corrupt politicians, aka lobbying, is at best putting a patch on the symptom.

seibelj2• 8 years ago

Has anyone tried to make an SV startup-style company sell Japanese-type toilets in America? I think a lot of people would like them

jesterjester3• 8 years ago

Considering people keep toilets for 5-10 years per toilet on average and the cost of a toilet is much less than the cost of an electrical bidet... It is not a great idea.

asaph• 8 years ago

people keep toilets for 5-10 years per toilet on average

Do you have any data to back this up? I would have assumed it was far less often.

koolba• 8 years ago

5-10 years? Is that the life expectancy of the average modern toilet?

From personal experience that seems off by a few decades.

PhasmaFelis2• 8 years ago

I have never actually heard of anyone buying a new toilet. I'm sure it happens, but 5-10 years? My parents' house still has the same toilet it had when they moved in 30-odd years ago, and it works as well as it ever did.

Also, I dunno about the electrical ones, but you can get a non-electric bidet for like $25 off Amazon. Maybe a bit more for one with hot and cold hook-ups and a temperature knob. You just run it with the nozzle aimed down until it warms up.

ojbyrne• 8 years ago

Good summary here: https://priceonomics.com/toilets/

seibelj2• 8 years ago

Wow, solid link. Hopefully some clever entrepreneur will make it happen, someday

TylerE2• 8 years ago

You can but them here already. Just no one does

akvadrako• 8 years ago

Where and can you also buy them in Europe? I looked when remodelling my bathroom and couldn't find anything.

com2kid2• 8 years ago

Most bathrooms aren't wired for electricity near the toilet.

That aside, you can buy Toto toilets in the US. The fancy ones are north of 4k, but they are available.

Cold water sprays are readily available, $60 and a 10 minute installation later.

mikekchar• 8 years ago

I just wanted to point out that the US prices are pretty comparable to the Japanese prices. And after having lived in Japan for nearly a decade, I'll pay the price in a heartbeat. The previous occupants of our apartment left one in our apartment and it's one of the cheaper models (about $3-400 IIRC). It's still awesome and worth every cent. You could probably even justify it based on the reduction in toilet paper if you want to, but I don't even think of it. It's gotten to the point where when I go back to visit the UK or Canada, the lack of cleaning options is just disgusting in my mind.

Edit: weird wording

halbritt6• 8 years ago

I have somewhat inexpensive mass-market Toto toilets in my house. I've added a washlet for $400. There's wiring nearby. The warm water is really nice.

Until I die, I won't ever not have a washlet at home.

Baeocystin• 8 years ago

BioBidet has been selling them for years. A couple hundred $ gets you a heated seat, heated water, air dry, everything. They're actually increasing in popularity stateside rapidly.

GolDDranks2• 8 years ago

Here in Japan, most Westerners tend to hate Japanese-style toilets with passion...?

chairmankaga• 8 years ago

Are you talking about the squat toilets? Because the other smart toilets are very nice, even if you don't use the cleaning options, having a heated seat in the winter is amazing.

NeedMoreTea3• 8 years ago

Mostly you only need to replace the lid+seat to get those.

There's a few companies selling Japanese bidet seats in the UK and some that provide translated control panels. No reason they wouldn't succeed in the US too.

Only the highest priced ones are the complete toilet.

monadgonad• 8 years ago

There's a few companies selling Japanese bidet seats in the UK

Do you have one? Are you able to make any recommendations? I'm considering getting one, but how are they powered? The idea of a power socket in my bathroom is slightly horrifying.

halbritt6• 8 years ago

I have a couple of Toto toilets in my house. They have washlets that fit most of their products. I have one.

I don't mean to overstate this, but it is life-changing. I can't imagine going back to a time when I used only paper and considered that sufficient.

bonestamp2• 8 years ago

A friend of mine brought a toilet back from Japan with him when he moved back and I was always in envy. I'm looking at a Toto Neorest 700H right now, it's about $5000. Is that the kind of system you'd recommend or what are you using?

krrrh• 8 years ago

I wanted to get one after visiting Japan, but I realized that it was something that would have to wait until I moved into a place with more than one bathroom, so I could leave a normal toilet in the one guests would use. I just didn’t want to have a conversation about it with every person who visited my home.

wingerlang3• 8 years ago

I agree 100% about the life changing part. But for a cheap solution, go with a hose attached to the toilet. I'd say I prefer them over the Japanese versions. More versatile and the only thing you really lose is the .. heating?

jcims• 8 years ago

Holy moly, how do you pick a specific toilet from that lineup? That's hilarious.

cyphar• 8 years ago

In a large part of central Europe they have bidets, which is a lower-tech version of the same thing.

iancmceachern• 8 years ago

I would think so, I've found Toto toilets to be common in the bay area, especially in the workplaces of startups and tech companies.

lsc2• 8 years ago

Has anyone tried to make an SV startup-style company sell Japanese-type toilets in America? I think a lot of people would like them

I think google is indirectly in that business; It used to be that only my foreign friends would be likely to have a washlet, and then usually a less fancy one. But in the last decade, more and more of my American born techie friends have bought toto toilets or washlets, I assume after experiencing that luxury at google or one of the other tech companies that provide that sort of thing.

samstave2• 8 years ago

This makes me realize how freaking stupid we are as a nation/group-of-nations:

There are issues/problems that are common to all. Especially common to ALL governments, societies, etc.

Given a population of X and an infrastructure level of Y with purpose Z that are impacts ABC...N

A=Cost B=Scale C=[whatever] N=...

So - when you look at the cost of a nation, we assume that we have an infrastructure maturity/development level of X

What does it cost to implpement, upgrade-to, maintain that level.

What is the standard.

etc...

=============

So, when we talk about "saving $X for reinventing Y thing" -- this is a reactionary (albeit valuable) effort...

What if we restart rebuilding our societies from ground zero.

Lets build a preplanned city (yeah yeah brazilia etc) and first model it out ala simcity.

with AI running it over and over again until it outspits a detailed plan, it thinks is ideal and then a big committee of meat-bags review it and fuck it up.

Any Gates-level-ish people want to try to build something.

Fuck Mars. Earth First.

jesterjester3• 8 years ago

You should visit Korea. This is exactly what happens.

New cities are built around that new Samsung office, or that new army base, or that fake, pressured CBD.

The cities surrounding the main capital of Korea are marvellous and are all made from scratch in the last 20 years.

There is no better model of perfect city.

samstave2• 8 years ago

Why the fuck was this downvoted so much, comment and contribute please. This is a serious thought experiment.

sk5t2• 8 years ago

I didn't vote on your comment, but would opine that it fit the downvote-attracting heuristic of "how freaking stupid we are" + pseudo-thoughtful symbolic algebra + inchoate nerdrage.

PhasmaFelis2• 8 years ago

I read the headline and thought, "That's weird, Gates isn't really interested in things that just save money these days." And sure enough, from the article:

"...may help end almost 500,000 infant deaths and save $233 billion annually in costs linked to diarrhea, cholera and other diseases..."

So I guess that's Bloomberg for you. 233 billion dollars is a way more interesting lede than a mere half a million lives.

nolok• 8 years ago

For the public they aim at? Definitely.

slededit• 8 years ago

Things that aren't cost effective don't normally work at scale. So this is what differentiates it from a feel-good PR stunt that will go nowhere. Cynical to be sure, but grounded in historical precedent.

Bulkington• 8 years ago

Okay, I'll bite. I was at a urinal today that had a mesh screen of a style I'd never noticed, and I thought: Some guy with a degree in engineering/fluid dynamics has this on his resume.

But when you consider there are what, 3.5 billion or so males on the planet, the benefits of urinal hygiene add up pretty quickly.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/08/urinal-splashback-...

pbhjpbhj8• 8 years ago

A few years ago (maybe 10) we started getting "waterless" urinals in the UK. I assume that was a materials improvement (extreme hydrophobic coatings?). They have an outlet pipe, but no inlet.

That must save a lot of piping and water.

mikro2nd3• 8 years ago

Not a materials improvement, but an improvement in the shape of the bowl, so mostly a direct result of better hydrodynamic and CAD modeling.

Not only do they use less water, but they /smell better/ -- most of the "smell of urine" results from the pee being added to, and reacting with, water, so no water, no noticeable odour.

mindfulplay• 8 years ago

This reminds me of software developer who favor deep, technical, architectural work instead of attractive, "sounds cool on paper" sort of work.

To an outsider, the animations look cool but the engine that drives the animation is cooler to software engineers.

Point being, this is not something a normal philanthropist would imagine being cool and awesome. This takes someone who actually cares about shit (in this case literally) to invest time and money into it.

docbrown• 8 years ago

One thing I always thought fascinating about Gates was his candid relationship with feces.

mindfuplay’s comment reminded me of the famous glass of shit water Gates drank from his Omniprocessor project [0].

But within that 2015 article, Gates mentions a long term plan for seweage and shit[1]:

If we can develop safe, affordable ways to get rid of human waste, we can prevent many of those deaths and help more children grow up healthy.
Western toilets aren’t the answer, because they require a massive infrastructure of sewer lines and treatment plants that just isn’t feasible in many poor countries.

He also mentions he wrote about toilets before in a 2012 article titled “Reflections on the Reinventing the Toilet Challenge.”[2]

Digging deeper into that article brought me to a PDF from the Gates Foundation outlining grants from their 2011 program: “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge” [3]

————

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVzppWSIFU0

[1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Omniprocessor-From-Po...

[2] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Reflections-on-the-Re...

[3] https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/Documents/wsh-reinvent-the-...

nradov• 8 years ago

Western toilets seem to work reasonably well with septic tanks in rural areas. Those don't involve sewer lines or treatment plants.

killjoywashere2• 8 years ago

because they require a massive infrastructure of sewer lines and treatment plants

How do you think economies grow? Job creation at this scale has to be funded out of tax receipts and bonds. The problem is managing the corruption (note: one must assume there are corrupt actors. The trick is managing them).

godelmachine2• 8 years ago

If you watch the video properly you will see that he did not drink the water

Fomite2• 8 years ago

One thing I always thought fascinating about Gates was his candid relationship with feces.

You pretty much can't be in public health, especially not developing world public health, without developing a preoccupation with poo.

baybal24• 8 years ago

>Western toilets aren’t the answer, because they require a massive infrastructure of sewer lines and treatment plants that just isn’t feasible in many poor countries.

Then build it! No magic tricks there.

I think, this is the most infuriating trait I see in all Silicon Valley "sophisticated person" types.

chiefalchemist2• 8 years ago

"One thing I always thought fascinating about Gates was his candid relationship with feces."

I'd say his relationship is with humans. People are his ends. Feces (i.e., the lack there of) are his means. It's a stunning example of hope (not being lost).

What's most impressive to me is a $200 million investment over 7 years, has the potential to "return" $200 billion __annually__. The lottery seems to break $200M a couple+ times per yer.

Editorial: It's amazing what you can accomplish for the price of a handful of F35 fighter jets.

hyperpallium• 8 years ago

A surgeon who was a missionary in nepal said he'd have had far gteater impact on health by digging ditches, because of open sewers. He didn't, because it was more important to him to be a surgeon.

Seems Bill Gates is trying to improve the whole system, not just some technical aspect. Which also differentiated MS from most technical companies.

Fomite2• 8 years ago

Which is somewhat interesting, because a common criticism of the Gates Foundation I encounter in the field is that they are a little enamored with gadgets and "sexy" targets.

achileas• 8 years ago

There are also companies designing "smart toilets" to understand the gut microbiome and changes in it for the user, e.g. https://www.ted.com/speakers/jun_wang

kbenson• 8 years ago

Bill Gates is an amazing example of a driven, ambitious (and when called for by his ambition, ruthless) person and how those traits can lead to startlingly different perceptions of him based on what they are applied to.

Bill Gates the businessman was ruthless in his pursuit of dominating the markets he was in, and was largely successful, to many people's dismay.

Bill Gates the philanthropist is doggedly persistent in identifying and working towards fixing some of the major problems human-kind faces, and he's an actual hero to millions (me included, at this point).

The same person, with the same attitude and drive, just applied to a different goal. I think that's amazing.

erikpukinskis• 8 years ago

There are some common threads though. Forcing a monoculture of Windows machines tied to a Microsoft-controlled software ecology that hampered innovation vs. forcing a monoculture of GMO crops tied to a chemical corp-controlled farming ecology that hampers farming innovation.

He is good at solving big problems by forcing everyone to work the same way. Which is good until that becomes a stupid way of working that hurts everyone.

conner_bw• 8 years ago

And the graphics card that drives the engine is cooler to hardware engineers.

And the mining capabilities of the graphics hardware is cooler to cryptocurrency investors.

Full circle?

Jedi72• 8 years ago

Toilets are a great example of how technological progress isn't just endless improvement. Sometimes we hit complete dead ends even on the simplest problems.

pbhjpbhj8• 8 years ago

There have been lots of toilet innovations "recently".

Toilets that use excrement to generate electricity, for example, like in this situation https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41680867.

zukunftsalick• 8 years ago

TOTO has been researching and improving toilets for many years. I've been to their Toilet museum in Kitakyushu, Japan and it's just amazing the research they put into it, specially in water savings measures. What's missing for them, it's to make them more affordable to everyone.

m_mueller4• 8 years ago

Many Japanese companies could make so much money if they'd figure out the international markets.

oblio3• 8 years ago

Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Sony, Nintendo, Canon, Suzuki, Yamaha, Panasonic, Toshiba, etc. are household names. I'd say that the Japanese have plenty of internationally-savvy brands, I wouldn't pity them :p

sytelus• 8 years ago

The problem is that there is no way to make toilets "affordable" for people who really need it. These people who live in 3rd world countries barely manage to put up a roof on their head out of whatever material they can gather around. Their lives often run in debts with zero money to spare on anything. They often don't have money for two proper meals a day. The only "affordable" way for them to have toilet is if you built one for them for free.

There are 892 million people without toilet as per Wikipedia. Assuming 10 people sharing toilet, cost of building one toilet is $500 (assuming government gives land for free), solving this problem will require ~$50B investment world wide. This is about half of own money Gates foundation can possibly donate. Also, critical part is ongoing maintenance. So self-maintaining toilets that is very cheap to setup is very critical research to solve this problem.

MarkMc• 8 years ago

Toilets can be cheaper than you expect - in some places cultural barriers may be the main problem. Here's an extract from an excellent book called Poor Economics [1]:

-----------------

The conventional wisdom is that today, at $20 per household per month, providing piped water and sanitation is too expensive for the budget of most developing countries. The experience of Gram Vikas, an NGO that works in Orissa, India, shows, however, that it is possible to do it much more cheaply. Its CEO, Joe Madiath, a man with a self-deprecating sense of humor who attends the annual meeting of the worlds rich and powerful at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in outfits made from homespun cotton, is used to doing things differently. Madiaths career as an activist started early: He was twelve when he first got into troublefor organizing the labor on the plantation that his father owned. He came to Orissa in the early 1970s with a group of left-wing students to help out after a devastating cyclone. After the immediate relief work was over, he decided to stay and see if he could find some more permanent ways to help the poor Oriya villagers. He eventually settled on water and sanitation. What attracted him to the issue was that it was simultaneously a daily challenge and an opportunity to initiate long-term social change. He explained to us that in Orissa, water and sanitation are social issues. Madiath insists that every single household in the villages where Gram Vikas operates should be connected to the same water mains: Water is piped to each house, which contains a toilet, a tap, and a bathing room, all connected to the same system. For the high-caste households, this means sharing water with low-caste households, which, for many in Orissa, was unacceptable when first proposed. It takes the NGO a while to get the agreement of the whole village and some villages eventually refuse, but it has always stuck to the principle that it would not start its work in a village until everyone there agreed to participate. When agreement is finally reached, it is often the first time that some of the upper-caste households participate in a project that involves the rest of the community.

Once a village agrees to work with Gram Vikas, the building work starts and continues for one to two years. Only after every single house has received its tap and toilet is the system turned on. In the meantime, Gram Vikas collects data every month on who has gone to the health center to get treated for malaria or diarrhea. We can thus directly observe what happens in a village as soon as the water starts flowing. The effects are remarkable: Almost overnight, and for years into the future, the number of severe diarrhea cases falls by one-half, and the number of malaria cases falls by one-third. The monthly cost of the system for each household, including maintenance, is 190 rupees, or $4 per household (in current USD), only 20 percent of what is conventionally assumed to be the cost of such a system.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Poor-Economics-Radical-Rethinking-Pov...

TheSpiceIsLife• 8 years ago

Since I recently read The Expanse, I keep thinking, more than usual, about the basic life supporting technologies we'd need to be able to live anywhere else in the solar system.

In The Expanse all biological waste goes into the recycler, which, evidently, feeds a bioreactor to general clean water and new food.

It sounds like what Gates is keen to see deployed: Human waste > fertiliser > new food and hydrogen > fuel cell > energy & water.

We're still a long waste from having anything anywhere near a closed system. Baby steps.

the_duke• 8 years ago

Side question: are the books sufficiently different to the TV series to warrant a reading?

anonunt• 8 years ago

not seen all of the series but it seems to be mashing together the first few books.

IMHO they are probably better than the series but they start getting not so good at some point - I cannot remember if i have read them all but i do remember it getting a bit boring / dragged out towards the end.

it is ultimately in that class of media where the goal is not so much about saying something to telling a story as it is about making an ongoing revenue stream.

I generally stick away from this stuff but sci-fi books seem to all be going this way these days :(

gtsteve3• 8 years ago

A lot of the key events are the same, although the timeline is moved around to introduce some characters sooner. The books go into far more detail about the cultures and their values, and backstory to the characters.

I personally recommend it. I'm typically quite busy so I don't really make my way through more than 1-2 books a month but I think I read all the books that are currently out in about 6 weeks.

panabee• 8 years ago

one potential area of innovation for toilets is in hospitals or pharmacies where people could defecate/urinate in a "smart toilet" which chemically analyzes the waste matter and sends results to a central lab for reporting.

when technology gets cheap enough, these smart toilets could then move from healthcare businesses into the home, analyzing waste matter on a daily basis to yield health insights.

breck• 8 years ago

Anytime this idea comes up I have to mention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ

A funny parody of SV but also has some neat ideas.

charlysl• 8 years ago

Gandhi would be proud.

https://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2015/10/01/5-things-mahatma-ga...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swachh_Bharat_mission

ptd• 8 years ago

I've always believed that one of the signs that humanity is headed towards a post-scarcity world is when every human has access to a working toilet with a sanitized plumbing system. Glad to see Gates putting so many resources into solving this issue.

Perhaps we need to start having a conversation about which 'version' of Gates has had a bigger impact on society(not that it matters, but an interesting intellectual pursuit). I vote for post-Microsoft Gates, though I would imagine I'm in the minority.

z3t4• 8 years ago

My guess is that those $200 will end up with a reinvention of the outhouse, but with a computer that will automatically open and close the seat. Seriously though, if you live in your own house and have a fairly big garden, and aint afraid to do some shitty work, then the waste can be used as fertilizer. I mean why does it have to be so complicated !?

esmi• 8 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_soil

“The use of unprocessed human feces as fertilizer is a risky practice as it may contain disease-causing pathogens. Nevertheless, in some developing nations it is still widespread. Common parasitic worm infections, such as ascariasis, in these countries are linked to night soil use in agriculture, because the helminth eggs are in feces and can thus be transmitted from one infected person to another person (fecal-oral transmission of disease).

These risks are reduced by proper fecal sludge management, e.g. via composting. The safe reduction of human excreta into compost is possible. Some municipalities create compost from the sewage sludge, but then recommend that it only be used on flower beds, not vegetable gardens. Some claims have been made that this is dangerous or inappropriate without the expensive removal of heavy metals.”

mikro2nd3• 8 years ago

It doesn't have to be that way: https://humanurehandbook.com/

dsign• 8 years ago

> contained as many as 200 trillion rotavirus cells

Journalists can't grasp that saying a rotavirus is a cell is like stretching a wrench to be a SUV? What kind of twisted education system can get somebody to become so proficient with words and so noob in basic science?

zerocrates• 8 years ago

"200 trillion rotavirus cells," at least in other sources, is written as a direct quotation from Gates.

manav• 8 years ago

I've always wondered why we never really saw toilets in Star Trek. They never really could re-imagine them back then (or now).

I have several fully automatic Totos (which have to abide by California/US water usage rules).. and while the bidets, seat heating, and automisting (it sprays water every 15-30 seconds to try to keep the bowl clean) features are nice the water limits and bowl design make it a pain to clean and maintain if you get what I mean. It's also basically useless if theres no electricity, I believe you can manually flush once if the power goes out with a pull-cord. For western/developed countries I think there is still a big market for a better toilet.

In developing countries obviously infrastructure is an issue, but for sewage would a composting toilet not be a viable option? Maybe solar powered for some higher power exhaust and ventilation along with water treatment/sanitation. It's kind of the low tech version of how Star Trek would turn matter into energy.

teddyh2• 8 years ago

I've always wondered why we never really saw toilets in Star Trek.

When the original series was made, you couldn’t show a toilet on TV – it simply wasn’t allowed.

But, beginning in 1989 with the release of the feature film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, you do get the occasional glimpse of an actual toilet here and there.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Toilet

pbhjpbhj8• 8 years ago

Allowed as in illegal? Which country, what regulations?

tome2• 8 years ago

This is the closest I could get from 1973, "The Sting"

https://youtu.be/M78dkPzChPw?t=4733

lbriner• 8 years ago

Yes, composting toilets are absolutely a solution for many countries but for some reason, they have never been well-supported enough to take hold. Many individual examples have been built that use locally available materials (like nets in a fishing village) but these are one-offs.

I saw some UN project but of course it was 20 toilets and 50,000 pages of reports and paperwork so that didn't really work out.

For much less money, Bill Gates could have produced some internationally accepted standard designs that could be open sourced for local production and even "flat pack" style for people to easily construct.

The guy has a great heart but this does look like a case of tech seeing everything as a technical problem.

pbhjpbhj8• 8 years ago

For western/developed countries I think there is still a big market for a better toilet. //

A way to _simply_ use rainwater that can be cheaply retrofitted would be good.

_uzxp• 8 years ago

Our imaginations are so limited.

If they have teleportation technology, ...

Uberphallus• 8 years ago

Surprisingly related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILoo

alexis_fr• 8 years ago

Toilet Day was recognized by UN in 2013 and is celebrated on November 19th. I guess this report was issued in preparation.

UN still doesn’t recognize International Men’s Day, which is on Nov 19 too and celebrated since 2003 [1]. It’s a bit of a humiliation that they put Toilet Day instead.

[1] http://internationalmensday.com

phot0n2• 8 years ago

I have to ask: the results of this research are amazing, but isn't this something that we should all realize is of material importance? Why did it take the funding of a benevolent economic dictator?

If you question my assertion of his economic role, this podcast [1] goes into the questionable aspects of the philanthropy of the Gates Foundation and some of the experiments being run in Africa without popular democratic input or consent.

[1] https://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst/episode-46-the-not-so-be...

Brakenshire• 8 years ago

Most democracies are not even good at funding medical research for dramatic, emotionally immediate diseases like cancer or dementia. One can only imagine the response that tabloids like Bild, the Daily Mail or Fox News would have if any of our countries spent $200m on toilets for the developing world. This is a perfect example of why capitalism works in my opinion, because you have power bases who can independently pursue unfashionable or undramatic ideas without having to pursuade a population of millions to back them in advance.

satysin• 8 years ago

It many not be cool and glamorous but dealing with human waste in a hygienic way has been one of the biggest benefits to society that not many people think about. Better toilets means better overall hygiene which means less people sick which means a stronger more reliable workforce and less money wasted on easy to prevent illnesses.

For all of the negative things Bill Gates did when at Microsoft I am glad to see most of the money he made from those actions are being used for such positive things now rather than just going back into SV startups and the like.

sonnyblarney4• 8 years ago

I admire Gates a lot, but for him and way too many technophiles the answer is somehow always tech.

Africa does not have a toilet problem. Or a tech problem. Or even a resources problem. They have a lack of intelligent social organization problem; i.e. dysfunctional or non-existent institutions, laws and organizational structures, as well as myriad forms of corruption from top to bottom that make it impossible to create the systems that would otherwise keep them healthy, sanitary, safe, well-fed yada yada.

Maybe he could publicly ask, how every year, the Minister of Finance in Nigeria publishes a note indicating there is somehow billions of dollars missing from the coffers, that didn't make it over from the Ministry of Petro Resources, i.e Oil [1]? Or the like. Tackling the more obvious, glaring wide-open 'in our faces but we ignore anyhow' forms of corruption might be a good start, and would ultimately yield a lot more than functional toilets.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/03/ni...

tialaramex• 8 years ago

One of the things Gates' money pays for is Guinea Worm Eradication.

Guinea Worm is literally a parasitic worm. The eradication programme isn't about injecting people with a vaccination, building modern water treatment plants or deploying sophisticated drone technology, it's stuff like:

- Here are some free water filters. Filter the water from that murky pond before you drink it.

- When you have a worm, don't go in the water. Yes it feels cooler, that's because the worm wants you to go to the water, go to a free treatment clinic instead.

- If your neighbour has a worm, go to the clinic, tell them who the neighbour is, you both get cash money and the clinic will treat the worm. Hooray.

The biggest obstacles to Guinea Worm Eradication are not about Africa's lack of technology or its corruption.

The big obstacles are "insecurity" (ie civil wars or just violent criminals who control outlying areas) and "inaccessibility".

Inaccessibility is hard to comprehend for most of us, we're not used to truly being far from civilisation. People who live two days walk from anything resembling a road may have only heard rumours of the existence of the Guinea Worm clinics - for them a parasitic worm chewing its way out of your leg is just a routine hazard of normal rural living.

But yeah, Gates is already investing in the very lowest technology fixes, he isn't some tech nutjob who thinks we're going to solve desperate poverty with a Docker image.

sonnyblarney4• 8 years ago

"The biggest obstacles to Guinea Worm Eradication are not about Africa's lack of technology or its corruption.

The big obstacles are "insecurity" (ie civil wars or just violent criminals who control outlying areas) and "inaccessibility".

This is a contradiction.

My grandparents grew up on farms way in the back country of Canada, in ruthlessly inhospitable weather, on not exactly fertile soil. When my ancestors landed there they were 'many days walk' from anything remotely resembling civilization.

And yet there were no 'civil gang wars' etc..

If there were civility and rule of law, there wouldn't be gangs controlling territory willy nilly, and the term 'two days walk' wouldn't exist because there would at least be some form of basic transport, however crude.

I do accept that there might be some specific problems (i.e. diseases) that make it much more difficult, and I don't think Gates is wasting everyone's time - however - he's not after root causes, which are civic.

woogiewonka• 8 years ago

I googled Guinea Worms and was pleasantly surprised to see Jimmy Carter working on the problem. Supposedly, the worm is 99.9% eradicated and is on its way to be completely wiped off the face of the earth. Jimmy Carter and the people involved int his are awesome!

SiempreViernes• 8 years ago

He could well as, but I expect nobody would be much surprised over the answer: as you say, the problem of corruption is well known and merely exposing it again won't do much.

Tough if he secretly bought out a few accounting agencies and published all documents of the illicit money transfers going on that could probably have an effect as it makes the laundering harder.

pbhjpbhj8• 8 years ago

the problem of corruption is well known and merely exposing it again won't do much //

I disagree. Exposing it is what is needed as a first step. Continual, explicit, widespread exposure.

The problem there I suspect is those with power to do anything fear their own exposure; or they prefer to gain from being party of the international elite; or they choose to use it as leverage for other things.

ThomPete• 8 years ago

The toilet he want to create are waterless its very important also to the africans but not at least for the large but often expensive cities that are going to grow over the next decades.

He is on of the few that actually do look for problems around him and solve them.

C1sc0cat2• 8 years ago

erm low tech tech like Bill is funding is the right tech in this case.

And you work with the political system you have not the one you would like.

OnlineCourage• 8 years ago

That's super callous and cynical. "Some African governments are corrupt so don't do anything." Deaths from malaria in Africa fell from 800,000 per year in 2000 to 400,000 per year today because of the introduction of affordable mosquito nets. That fact alone refutes your entire arguement.

sonnyblarney4• 8 years ago

My take is not cynical, it's pragmatic, moreover, I didn't imply that Gates shouldn't doing what he is doing.

"Deaths from malaria in Africa fell from 800,000 per year in 2000 to 400,000 per year today because of the introduction of affordable mosquito nets. That fact alone refutes your entire arguement."

This statement only enhances my argument. Africa is a bountiful land of resources and ostensible human capital for labour. They should easily be able to afford (or make their own) mosquito nets.

Consider the vast numbers of unemployed people - and that making 'mosquito nets' doesn't require any skill or frankly machinery. The only ostensible 'import' would be some very inexpensive textiles. We're talking a few pennies per person. And that the 'upside' from the effort would yield dramatic benefits, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of saved lives. How on earth are zillions of people dying from something that literally only a few million dollars in 'external financing' (if they don't have the money, which they do) - and some pragmatic planning - should solve? That there needed to be intervention to solve this problem only highlights how dramatically dysfunctional the situation must be.

And as far as 'some' governments, no, it's pretty much all of them, maybe save Botswana, the shinning example, at least for now. [1]

Also - it's not just 'governments', and it's not just 'corruption' - it's lack of civic function all the way up and down society.

[1] https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_percept...

imglorp• 8 years ago

Nope, it's accurate.

One booming industry is kidnapping [1]. I worked on a technology that would have helped with that problem in one of those African states. We made the sale, delivered our equipment, and prepared to install and activate the first phase. The equipment vanished and the negotiations stalled on the next phase. It seems half the government was interested in preventing kidnappings, while the other half was perpetrating them. Furthermore, the budgeting process involved some kind of internal process where someone gets approval to spend some money, the money is issued, but it gets "taxed" on its way to the vendor until nothing is left. Total loss for us.

1. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mapping-kidnappings-in-...

ps - Our teams visiting in country needed armed escorts, for obvious reasons.

gvb• 8 years ago

Tackling the more obvious, glaring wide-open 'in our faces but we ignore anyhow' forms of corruption (OP) is not "so don't do anything."

iguy2• 8 years ago

It's indeed true that the problem is not caused by a lack of technology. Some places became much more sanitary, safe, well-fed on a much lower technological level.

But a more positive take would be that perhaps better tech offers a way to improve people's lives despite other disfunction.

London had pretty amazing communications 150 years ago, letters delivered 4-5 times a day to any of a million people. This machine took an enormous amount of human capital to run — thousands of literate & honest postmen, for a start. Today we can deliver a better outcome with much less input — just a few guys who know how to set up a cellphone base station. This doesn’t fix the dysfunction, but does offer many benefits.

mac01021• 8 years ago

hastily searches brain for a contrived intuition pump

In "Star Trek: The Next Generation", Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge does not have a tech problem. He has a lack-of-properly-functioning-eyes problem.

It's been solved with technology, though.

In this case, maybe technology will enable people to create a sanitary environment even in the face of impediments from the state.

sswaner• 8 years ago

Forums like this would accuse Gates of modern colonialism if he attempted any of the government reforms or accountability measures you describe.

empath75• 8 years ago

And rightfully so because the history of those kinds of interventions haven’t gone well historically.

sonnyblarney4• 8 years ago

Yes, that's essentially a root problem.

The corrupt leaders would use any plausible excuse to defend their fiefdoms ...'colonialism' would be an easy one to hide behind, and a lot of naive actors on our side would chime in in support. Sadly.

cm2012• 8 years ago

Sure, there's corruption in developing countries. You think Gates doesn't know that? The option in face of that is to do jack shit or make tech that can help.

mmsimanga• 8 years ago

As an African I am with you on Africa's true problems. From the article though it seems Gates isn't just looking for a solution for Africa. He is looking at his from a humanity perspective. We aren't getting the most from our sewage. There are some low tech toilet designs that work relatively well in Africa. The Blair Toilet[0] being one.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blair_toilet

alehul3• 8 years ago

While I agree with you, and have actually thought about this same problem a ton, this seems dangerous to try and change as an individual rather than a fellow government.

Additionally, removing corrupt officials will just create a power vacuum, and oftentimes officials will become corrupt over the course of their term. I forget the political science terminology, but there's this issue where someone will only be able to take over in a dictatorship if they have the backing of many others, who, unsurprisingly, want more out of them than they get from the current official. So the end result is that nearly always, the new official will be more corrupt, particularly in destitute autocracies and oligarchies where the general public's opinions are either irrelevant or uninformed.

So while, yes, the corruption will throw wrenches into all our efforts, is there a solution to it? Or do we just have to throw enough resources to account for the corruption, and hope that an educated society with better infrastructure can start fighting the corruption problem themselves?

konschubert• 8 years ago

I think it's all about education

leesec• 8 years ago

He/we can't even solve the corruption/political issues in our own country, yet you suggest that he solve all of the corruption/political issues in all of the countries with public health issues.

Much more direct to affect change via the private business route. It makes sense his foundation has stayed apolitical.

aglavine• 8 years ago

Big Issue is UN. UN was designed for a postwar scenario that has already disappeared.

eyeinthepyramid• 8 years ago

Africa (and the world at large) has lots of problems. Some are technical and some are political. Just focusing on one issue means missing out on opportunities to improve people's lives in other ways.

There are already a lot of organizations working on governance -- maybe it's best if tech people focus on tech problems and let the governance people work on governance problems?

goto11• 8 years ago

dysfunctional or non-existent institutions, laws and organizational structures, as well as myriad forms of corruption from top to bottom

But these problems are much harder to solve than toilets and malaria nets, which is difficult enough as it is.

majani• 8 years ago

As an African, I can't help but think that all this charity to Africa might be contributing to us lagging behind in the world. With charities helping out so much, will the local government ever get their act together and provide these functions of public sanitation like they are supposed to? Or will they keep stealing public health funds in the knowledge that charity will always swoop down to save the day?

Charities work with the premise of preventing suffering, but most developed countries can point to a "great suffering" that made them quickly turn their shit around, akin to an addict hitting rock bottom. I would liken charity in Africa to the enabler who always features in morbidly obese people's lives, constantly bringing the person food out of a misplaced sense of love, where perhaps the truly loving thing to do would be to let the person hit rock bottom and change themselves.

C1sc0cat2• 8 years ago

Would you rather keep the horrific death rate for under 5's

iguy2• 8 years ago

There is something to this. Was it Ethiopia that (at some point) instituted a no-NGOs-on-mondays type policy, after realising that all their ministers seemed to do was have meetings with the many aid organisations? (No link, sorry.) From memory such organisations contributed something like half the government budget, but all with their own concerns & priorities & need for visible success back home.

More generally, I think it's a pattern that governments which have to collect taxes from the masses need their consent, and thus tend to behave better, than governments which do not. Whether the non-tax income is from oil money or foreign aid, it probably has some similar effects.

derangedHorse• 8 years ago

We don't know if these systems will get better without external interference either. Another post on this page talks about fixing systematic corruption within African countries as being more helpful, but that's a hard problem also.

One solution I could think of is a foreign investor investing a lot of money into the campaign of a candidate who isn't corrupt. The caveat of that solution is the perspective that it would be foreign intervention in the political matters of a separate sovereign entity, thus generating discourse among natives.

Another solution is to raise money to raise political awareness, and use that money for programs that get natives to understand the differing positions of candidates (and towards the infrastructure for voting itself).

BUT it's a lot easier to focus on the immediate relief of general ailments such as life threatening diseases, and proper utilities to make the lives of the general public easier. This way natives of poorer countries won't have to worry about things we take for granted in the west, and can spend their time focusing on the systematic issues that caused those time consuming problems in the first place.

My line of thought in a way aligns with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Before one can begin worrying about psychological needs, one must have their basic needs met.

cobbzilla• 8 years ago

One solution I could think of is a foreign investor investing a lot of money into the campaign of a candidate who isn't corrupt.

The opposing candidate will win in a landslide when the foreign-funded candidate is painted as an outsider, funded by “our enemies”, whether true or not.

adrianN• 8 years ago

How much does it really help to have a noncorrupt leader of government when a large part of the bureaucracy below them is corrupt? Rooting out corruption is a terribly difficult problem that takes decades.

WhompingWindows• 8 years ago

Many politicians the world around would characterize government handouts the same way, government enabling morbid obesity. And yet, is there some fundamental objection you have to educating women or providing mosquito nets? Dying to malaria does not seem a good rock-bottom to let people hit, if we can provide them cheap nets.

snowwrestler• 8 years ago

There's no serious objection to either end of the giving chain--donations are good, and education and mosquito nets are good. But donations can slow or cease based on a variety of factors, and then problems that seemed solved won't be solved anymore.

An enduring solution really has to be internally self-sustaining. (Nations with good sewer systems pay for the maintenance themselves.) It's not clear how to structure voluntary donations so they lead to a sustainable solution. Good public health is necessary for developing a sustainable solution, but by itself it is not sufficient.

jriot• 8 years ago

The bigger issue from an economics perspective - how do you properly distribute mosquito nets to ensure people use them?

slim• 8 years ago

You're supposing good faith on the part of charity. Maybe their purpose is to enslave africa while supporting corruption in their home country

srtjstjsj2• 8 years ago

Your argument is that criminals will stop being criminals if they notice their victims suffering a bit more?

55555• 8 years ago

No, his argument is that the victims will eventually revolt and overthrow the criminals and a better country will form.

ianbicking• 8 years ago

"Charities work with the premise of preventing suffering, but most developed countries can point to a "great suffering" that made them quickly turn their shit around, akin to an addict hitting rock bottom. I would liken charity in Africa to the enabler who always features in morbidly obese people's lives, constantly bringing the person food out of a misplaced sense of love, where perhaps the truly loving thing to do would be to let the person hit rock bottom and change themselves."

Coming back from rock bottom isn't something I would read into the history of developed countries. And I don't know what rock bottom is, it seems like things can get unacceptably bad, and stay that way. Is famine rock bottom? Genocide? Child armies? The hole is too deep, you don't want to go there.

A cycle of incremental improvement from within seems like a better bet. But some of the critique remains: external support does not build up self-directed incremental improvement.

Where in Africa are things going well? Where have people found and created their own prosperity? Their own stable, peaceful civic structures? I entirely believe these places exist! But I have no idea where, because all the discussion is about what's going wrong, and the focus is on where things are the worst. But the answers aren't there. And I think you are right, charity can feed the dysfunction.

sangnoir• 8 years ago

most developed countries can point to a "great suffering" that made them quickly turn their shit around, akin to an addict hitting rock bottom.

It's an interesting ethical question on paper, but I bet it's one you wouldn't bother to ask if it were you dying from cholera, "for the greater good". In any case, only the living can hit rock bottom, so I salute the humanitarian effort going into saving lives.

cauldron• 8 years ago

I don't think places that need better toliet could afford or properly run things resulting from this multi millon dollar research.

F_r_k• 8 years ago

Solar panels were (are) a multi million dollar research project.

Yet they cost next to nothing and are really easy to operate and install

perpetualcrayon• 8 years ago

"And I definitely never thought that Melinda would have to tell me to stop talking about toilets and fecal sludge at the dinner table"

harlanji• 8 years ago

Most people don’t think about all the factors of waste disposal. 200,000,000/100,000/7 = 285 educated peoples’ salary for 7 years. Now thow in expenses. Doesn’t seem excessive given the multitude of issues. What’s the full disposal story? Throw in expenses and my response is “... and?”

As a SF homeless guy who frequently tweets about my hardships with pooping/water/grossness, I welcome toilet innovation like this.

gigatexal2• 8 years ago

I’d like to meet Gates one day and shake his hand and just tell him I’m glad he’s doing so much good with his wealth. I take for granted a lot and he’s helping to lift those that would love to have what I have.

inciampati• 8 years ago

I wish he hadn't accumulated all this wealth at the cost of strangling computing worldwide under his semi-broken operating system.

I not a fan of royalty, autocrats, or monarchs. Just because one person is OK when given that power doesn't make it morally just. It is good he is doing nice things, but I find it troubling.

gigatexal2• 8 years ago

He was a shrewd maybe ruthless businessman that's for sure -- but he's doing amazing things with his wealth now -- maybe this is his penitence?

jokoon• 8 years ago

I wonder if Gates could be a candidate to be president. He might win, although I'm curious about what politics he would be for.

It sounds like he could lean to the left, and I don't think you could call Bill Gates a socialist.

huhtenberg• 8 years ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/80ow6w/im_bill_gates_...

He basically thinks he can accomplish more by not being in the government.

keypress4• 8 years ago

Shit article. Basically it says, Gates has poured money into sanitation, and went to an expo.

No info about the technology, but there is mention of 5cents a day running cost. That's cheaper than my existing provider, so count me in.

Closing quotes were good.

“I never imagined that I’d know so much about poop,” Gates said in remarks prepared for the Beijing event. “And I definitely never thought that Melinda would have to tell me to stop talking about toilets and fecal sludge at the dinner table.”

Bypass the article.

sebringj• 8 years ago

The Gates Foundation focuses on real problems and how they can be implemented in the real world to actually solve things that work with the environment, economy and culture symbiotically as opposed to paying for porta-potties and drop shipping them. Knowing how to solve something is the point over blind action that has minimal chance of success. For me, this is the charity worth giving to if you must pick one.

xfactor9734• 8 years ago

Lol it’s called a compost toilet Bill. The technology is already here, it costs almost nothing to construct and use and creates a safe fertilizer at the end of the process. The amount of basic knowledge humanity has forgotten just blows my mind.

jakewins2• 8 years ago

Composting toilets do not produce safe fertilizer.

Worse, almost all the mainstream designs require handling the compost while the bacterial load is still very high, because the containers need emptying long before sufficient time to break down pathogens has passed.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC93126/

xfactor9734• 8 years ago

According to Jenkins that's not true: https://humanurehandbook.com/

kerbalspacepro• 8 years ago

Yes, the billionaire who has spent his retirement years and bought a team of experts to help him solve these problems has completely neglected such an easy solution! You should email him!

dmitripopov• 8 years ago

About 60% of toilets in Russia are how we call them "free fall toilets". Because everything that goes out has to fly more than 3 meters down the hole. My grand-grandma used "human wastes" to manure her garden each spring and it flourished. I guess it won't work nowadays because you've got to eat healthy food to produce healthy waste. But still... $200M?.. Hmm...

samiru• 8 years ago

What is wrong with composting toilets?

ArrayList• 8 years ago

That sounds like some interesting shit

JoshTko• 8 years ago

I wonder how much of the benefit from all this type of work will be wiped out due to climate change. Seems like increased coastal flooding, conflicts over scare resources, droughts, etc. will harm the most vulnerable far more than the benefit of all these programs combined. Like we'll win a battle but will lose the war.

internet555• 8 years ago

One of my colleagues spent a lot of time working on combination anthropological/aid missions. According to him, toilets/waste disposal was usually the number one way to help people in remote or less developed areas.

Gates Foundation spent $200M funding toilet research

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