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Re-Inventing the Toilet: By the Gates Foundation

Bateluer

Bateluer

Lifer
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/07/19/toilet.design.gates/index.html

"No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet," Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the foundation's global development program, said in a statement. "But it did not go far enough. It only reached one-third of the world. What we need are new approaches. New ideas. In short, we need to reinvent the toilet."
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• Andrew Cotton, from Loughborough University in the UK, is making a toilet that will "recover water and salt from feces and urine." Can I interest you in a drink of recycled water?

• Georgios Stefanidis, from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, is working on a toilet that will generate electricity from waste, which will be "gasified into plasma" using microwaves. That gas can be used to generate electricity, according to the proposal. Eat Taco Bell, take shit, watch American Idol, the cycle continues.

• Yu-Ling Chen, from the University of Toronto, is trying to make a toilet that will "sanitize feces within 24 hours" so human waste doesn't transmit disease through a community. Chen plans to use a process of dehydration, filtration and smoldering to render the waste harmless. Fertilizer?

• Michael Hoffmann, from the California Institute of Technology, plans to develop a solar-powered toilet. Solar cells generate enough power to process waste and turn it into fuel for electricity.Of course, from California.
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is this where our research money is going? i'd rather see them build an automatic back scratcher, hair comber, nose picker, ukulele tuner 9000
 
That's actually not a bad idea. Human and animal waste do wonders for fertilizing anything plant based. In countries that have problems cultivating crops, to be able to move waste from water sources over to badly depleted soil that would be a major achievment.
 
Arkitech said:
That's actually not a bad idea. Human and animal waste do wonders for fertilizing anything plant based. In countries that have problems cultivating crops, to be able to move waste from water sources over to badly depleted soil that would be a major achievment.
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If humans figured out how to use their poo efficiently, well, it'd be a boon to the planet earth. 7 billion humans can provide a lot of poo-power(granted it's power we've used).
 
I had never put much thought into the benefit to health from toilets, it makes sense though. Could be interesting to see what they can come up with to improve it.
 
SandEagle said:
is this where our research money is going? i'd rather see them build an automatic back scratcher, hair comber, nose picker, ukulele tuner 9000
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Uh, the Gates Foundation is privately funded by Bill and Melinda Gates. They can spend it on anything they damn well please without any oversight from the peanut gallery.
 
I bet the Japanese will come up with one that will make shit beef from your poop. They're already halfway there.
 
Box with a hole cut out the center? No plumbing required, just um, don't touch the edges.

So do people ever tip over when they use the shit holes where you have to squat?
 
There are plenty of dry, composting toilets available. This just seems like a waste of money. Instead of spending a bunch of cash on designing systems that will be really expensive, why not just by a ton of dry toilets that are already on the market?
 
I heard about a cool toilet the other day (wow, I thought a toilet was cool ... ).

After you flush, instead of just dumping water into the tank, it runs a tap into a sink basin, which drains into the toilet tank - giving you a minute or so to wash your hands without using any water the toilet wouldn't be using anyway.

Given how short people run faucets for when washing their hands it's probably not a huge savings, but I thought it was clever.
 
Hm.... are there any self cleaning toilets yet? I could really use one of those. That would be the future. No need to clean that smelly toilet bowl anymore.

Also think of all the restaurants that we could go to in peace when such toilets arrive.
 
simplyme said:
Hm.... are there any self cleaning toilets yet? I could really use one of those. That would be the future. No need to clean that smelly toilet bowl anymore.

Also think of all the restaurants that we could go to in peace when such toilets arrive.
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There are, you still need to know when to refill chemicals, though.
 
Arkitech said:
That's actually not a bad idea. Human and animal waste do wonders for fertilizing anything plant based. In countries that have problems cultivating crops, to be able to move waste from water sources over to badly depleted soil that would be a major achievment.
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if you ain't eatin...you ain't shittin (too much, anyway)
 
simplyme said:
Hm.... are there any self cleaning toilets yet? I could really use one of those. That would be the future. No need to clean that smelly toilet bowl anymore.

Also think of all the restaurants that we could go to in peace when such toilets arrive.
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Slit latrines require no cleaning or water.
 
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