Bill Gates wants to reinvent the toilet. Yes, that’s right. The toilet. No, I’m not talking about re-releasing Windows ME. He would like to have super efficient toilets that cost less that 5 cents a day per user (definitely not Windows!) and is waterless. Will it happen? Several prototypes are already being developed by CalTech and University of Toronto.
As Gates knows, two-thirds of the world’s people have no access to that great leap in sanitation, credited with adding a decade to our longevity. Their communities can’t afford the water and sewerage systems to which the toilet must be attached. So they make do with latrines or squat in the open, and consequently suffer diarrheal diseases that kill two million annually.