
Gates Foundation spent $200M funding toilet research - aportnoy
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-06/bill-gates-aims-to-save-233-billion-by-reinventing-the-toilet
======
mindfulplay
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
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVzppWSIFU0)

[1]:[https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Omniprocessor-From-
Po...](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Omniprocessor-From-Poop-to-
Potable)

[2]:[https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Reflections-on-the-
Re...](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Reflections-on-the-Reinvent-the-
Toilet-Challenge)

[3]:[https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/Documents/wsh-reinvent-
the-...](https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/Documents/wsh-reinvent-the-toilet-
challenge.pdf)

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

~~~
aerophilic
The issue comes down to cost. As he mentions in the article, the goal is to
get to 5 cents a day. Just a basic calculation, a “standard” septic system
costs between $1500-4000 to install, and lasts roughly 25 years. Just doing
the math on the low end costs brings you to about $0.16 cents a day, 3X the
goal Bill Gates is advocating.

Note: this isn’t even taking into account the cost of the toilet itself or any
plumbing needed.

~~~
gnarbarian
Really all you'd need to do to drastically improve things is get them to
simply dig a hole for an outhouse instead of the rampant open defecation seen
in India and some parts of Africa. We can solve the more complex and
exponentially expensive problems of water treatment later. Digging a deep hole
gets rid of rampant cholera and incidental exposure.

Basically you've got to learn to crawl before you can run a 10k.

edit: You can get someone who is completely illiterate and cut off from
civilization to understand the concept of digging a hole for the shit to go
in. This has the added benefit of not requiring advanced manufacturing
technology or materials. they just have to dig a hole and move the outhouse
top over to the new hole when the old one gets full. This makes them self
reliant.

~~~
torgian
Doesn’t really work for China though. Plenty of public toilets around, and
people (mostly children) will still take a shit in the street.

Hell, I was in Chongqing a couple months ago and saw a teenager literally
unzip, in full view of everyone, and pea on (on, not into) a recycling bin.
Next to a god damn public toilet.

In the middle of a shopping center.

Near a police officer.

A lot of people just don’t care.

~~~
odonnellryan
If you gotta go, I guess?

I've seen people poop on the train platform in NJ. Really crazy, but Newark
does not open the bathrooms until 7-8AM. So when you're waiting for the 3AM
train to DC... what you gonna do?

~~~
gdfasfklshg4
Hold it.

~~~
keypress
Seriously. I can barely hold a piss with age.

~~~
gdfasfklshg4
We are talking about someone defecating on a train station platform.

~~~
keypress
I've a good 'decent' friend, who had to take a shit on the station platform.
Because there was no other option available at the time. Some people can not
hold their bowels. I'm sure he'd have surrendered to the station toilets if
they were open. UK trains and stations frequently have shut or out of order
toilets. I've foolishly hung on, thinking the train will be an option, only to
discover it's a no can do. I'll go alfresco every time given the opportunity
these days.

------
majani
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.

~~~
derangedHorse
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.

~~~
adrianN
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.

~~~
felipemnoa
I read somewhere that removing corruption is a bottom-up process, not a top-
down one. That is, the culture has to change. There has to be a grassroots
movement to eliminate corruption. If society as a whole does not care about
it, then it matters not whether the people at the top are corrupt or not.

------
sonnyblarney
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...](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/03/nigeria-
oil-corruption-buhari/473850/)

~~~
OnlineCourage
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.

~~~
sonnyblarney
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...](https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2017)

------
satysin
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.

------
Bulkington
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-...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/08/urinal-splashback-
avoid-byu-wizz-kids_n_4234241.html)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
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.

~~~
mikro2nd
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.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
They are plastic though, whilst water flushed toilets, eg in pubs, are always
(?) ceramic.

Seems that it could be retrofitted easily by replacing the trap if the
materials aren't important.

I wonder if patent expiration is responsible for the apparent increase in use
of similar systems.

Thanks for your correction.

[https://www.waterless.com/how-do-waterless-urinals-
work/](https://www.waterless.com/how-do-waterless-urinals-work/)

~~~
mikro2nd
Interesting; I've only ever seen ceramic waterless urinals.

------
manav
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.

~~~
teddyh
> _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](http://memory-
alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Toilet)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Allowed as in illegal? Which country, what regulations?

~~~
arusahni
In the USA: [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/potty-
time/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/potty-time/)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Which intimates it was allowed but that studio policies, it again intimates,
might be responsible. It does say one single TV series never showed a toilet,
but only a tank.

Interesting taboo nonetheless.

I always thought it was just not done because it generally isn't moving a
story on to show someone on the toilet. Books don't usually mention characters
using the toilet either. I've played videogames with an eating mechanic but
never one where you needed to defecate (though Sims could when I last played
that).

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

~~~
oblio
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

~~~
m_mueller
For sure. The thing is, Japan is very industrious and innovative in certain
areas, it could have many more international players if it would push more
abroad. Much of their services sector for example is almost purely
concentrated on domestic market. Same goes for heavy industries, household
devices and media industries, with some exceptions in gaming. Toto is a
perfect example - they were 20+ years early in washlet innovation but never
marketed them much abroad. There's a tendency of giving up after just timid
marketing campaigns abroad I think. The most successful examples are mainly
where they've built up foreign subsidiaries with a certain amount of autonomy,
such as Honda & Toyota in US and Europe.

------
keypress
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.

------
Jedi72
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.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
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](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41680867).

------
PhasmaFelis
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.

~~~
slededit
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.

------
charlysl
Gandhi would be proud.

[https://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2015/10/01/5-things-mahatma-
ga...](https://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2015/10/01/5-things-mahatma-gandhi-said-
about-sanitation/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swachh_Bharat_mission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swachh_Bharat_mission)

~~~
ptd
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.

------
phot0n
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...](https://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst/episode-46-the-not-so-benevolent-
billionaire-part-ii-bill-gates-in-africa-4329389dd4a3)

~~~
Brakenshire
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.

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

------
alexis_fr
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](http://internationalmensday.com)

------
seibelj
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

~~~
halbritt
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.

~~~
krrrh
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.

~~~
wingerlang
The 'tools' are optional though?

Anyway, install a spray hose behind the toilet out of the way. I've used both
the hose and the high-tech toilets and I'd pick the former any day.

~~~
soundwave106
I echo that the toilet hose or (apparently this is the common slang for them)
"bum guns" that you see in many Asian restrooms would be pretty cool to
retrofit to a Western restroom (they really are more sanitary than the simple
paper wipe, MHO). They are indeed pretty cheap. Scanning forums, though, there
are two points I see that one would have to consider.

The first seems to be that hoses / sprayers can be little more prone to
leaking or, even in proper operation, creating a bit of a spray mess vs a
typical Western toilet installation. Most Asian restrooms designed around
toilet hoses have floor drains, so the dangers of general flooding and water
mess are a lot less. Western bathrooms typically lack full-room floor drains.
This point I can honestly see, which is why the built in washlet might have to
be the practical solution for many Western bathroom designs unfortunately.

A more "technical" issue is that these toilet hoses may not be "up to Western
code" in some countries per a few forum posts. The impression I get is the
code violations are more "technicalities" due to Western code not really
considering this concept. Forum posts are not what I would consider an
authority, but it is enough where I think it would be a good idea to check
with a plumber to see if there's any code the sprayers could somehow violate.

~~~
rebuilder
When you say "Western", which countries are you referring to? I ask because in
Finland at least, bidet showers are very common, although so are floor drains
in toilets. Nevertheless, I'm not aware of any widespread issues with leaks or
mis-spraying.

~~~
soundwave106
Sorry, by "Western" I more refer to the countries (United States, Canada, UK)
where bidets of any sort do not seem to be common at all. There are also other
Western countries (such as France, Germany, and Spain) where I remember bidets
being common, but they were stand-alone plumbing fixtures and not a simple
hose shower like you see in many Asian countries. This type is probably a lot
more expensive to add onto a US bathroom or similar.

I wasn't aware of toilet hoses being standard in Finland, thanks for the
information. I'm currently in Malaysia for a couple weeks and personally I am
seeing a little bit of mis-spray when using some public restrooms; the
misspray issue popped up when looking at forums as well as well. Maybe the
issue can be more easily mitigated than I thought (personally, I don't have a
problem making sure the spray stays inside the bowl) but plumbing codes might
like the drain just in case (it's not easy looking up technical codes in an
unfamiliar language so I'm not sure about this though :) ).

It is probably a lot harder to mitigate this type of issue with the "squat"
type toilet (you see a random mixture of both types it seems over here).

------
forapurpose
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?

~~~
TangoTrotFox
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](https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/education-spending.htm)

~~~
phot0n
Syndicalism is one possible solution, like what's being done in Jackson, MS
[1]

[1] [https://cooperationjackson.org](https://cooperationjackson.org)

------
black6
I recommend _The Humanure Handbook_ by Joseph Jenkins. The definitive guide to
humanure composting, and the best reference for general composting I've read.

------
sebringj
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.

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

~~~
gtsteve
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.

------
harlanji
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.

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

------
JoshTko
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
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.

------
gigatexal
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
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.

~~~
gigatexal
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?

------
Uberphallus
Surprisingly related:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILoo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILoo)

------
panabee
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
Anytime this idea comes up I have to mention:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ)

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

------
z3t4
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
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_soil](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.”

~~~
mikro2nd
It doesn't have to be that way:
[https://humanurehandbook.com/](https://humanurehandbook.com/)

------
jokoon
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
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/80ow6w/im_bill_gates_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/80ow6w/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/dux44u6/)

He basically thinks he can accomplish more by _not_ being in the government.

------
ArrayList
That sounds like some interesting shit

------
samiru
What is wrong with composting toilets?

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

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

------
dmitripopov
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...

------
xfactor973
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.

~~~
jakewins
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/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC93126/)

~~~
xfactor973
According to Jenkins that's not true:
[https://humanurehandbook.com/](https://humanurehandbook.com/)

~~~
jakewins
The NIH study I linked to tested the bacterial load after 6 months of
composting in almost 100 toilets. They found 64.2% of them had dangerous
levels of coliform bacteria.

Jenkins study, on the other hand, does not even attempt to measure the
bacterial levels of his toilets - he simply claims thermophilic composting of
human waste creates safe humus. The NIH study shows that thermophilic
composting is not the mechanism that breaks down bacteria in these toilets;
bacterial load is lowered through desiccation, drying out.

So - Jenkins does not understand how the composting works in his own product,
he has not actually tested the bacterial load, and he is financially
benefiting from people thinking his product is safe.

You're welcome to think the NIH study is falsified; but I would bet my money
on Jenkins being wrong here.

Here's his study on the safety of his product:
[https://humanurehandbook.com/downloads/humanure_sanitation_p...](https://humanurehandbook.com/downloads/humanure_sanitation_paper.pdf)

~~~
xfactor973
So after reading the NIH study it looks like the compost toilets they tested
were the desiccation kind. I don't really think those should be called compost
toilets at all. There's some link somewhere that I can't remember off the top
of my head ( maybe it's in the humaure handbook) where Jenkins talks about
having his compost sent to a local lab to be tested for harmful bacteria for
like a decade or something and it always came back fine.

------
samstave
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.

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

~~~
sk5t
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.

