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2018: Bill Gates unveils toilet that doesn't need water and sewage

In November 2018, Bill Gates took part in the Reinvented Toilet Expo, which presented an unusual toilet designed to solve the problem of unsanitary conditions in poor countries.

According to the Reuters news agency, the toilet does not need water and sewage to work - instead of flushing, the system processes waste into fertilizers using chemicals.

A toilet that doesn't need water and sewage. Instead of flushing, the system processes waste into fertilizers using chemicals

The innovative biounitase does not send waste into the water, as conventional toilets do, Gates said, but processes liquid and solid waste through chemical processes, burning them in most cases.

The businessman recalled that billions of pathogenic bacteria can be found in the toilet tank. He compared the spread of chemical waste disposal to the spread of computers, which have gone from huge machines to autonomous devices.

Thanks to the new approach to waste disposal, the world should reduce problems with child mortality, the cost of combating dangerous diseases like cholera and diarrhea resulting from poor sanitary conditions and poor water quality, Gates said.

He also stated that the technology presented was "the most significant achievement in sanitation in almost 200 years."

Over seven years  , about $200 million has been invested in the development of a device that would make it possible to turn human waste into fertilizers or water. In total, according to Gates, about 20 models of this kind of toilet were developed.^[1] 

According to the co-founder, Microsoft poor sanitation annually leads to the death of 500 thousand children under the age of five and requires additional costs health care of $233 billion per year. UNICEF estimated that 4.5 billion people worldwide do not have access to fully functioning sanitary and technical systems.

See also

• Smart Toilets

Notes