Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the world’s most philanthropic organization that was founded by Bill and Melinda Gates have offered grants amounting to $41.5 Million to any organizations or educational institutions to reinvent the toilet. The foundation whose global aims is to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty have made another efforts to reduce the cost of using and maintaining a toilet.
The project of giving grants for the reinvention of the toilet was announced by the Gates Foundation last Tuesday, July 19, 2011 (U.S. Time). The project which aimed at getting someone to reinvent the toilet which was used since the year 1700. The invention of the toilet in the year 1775 have saved millions of lives but it was taken for granted for the past 236 years.
According to Frank Rijsberman, the foundation’s director of water sanitation and hygiene the toilet was so expensive that ordinary people could not afford it. He was quoted as saying “It’s too expensive for people in the developing world; it requires water and a sewer-system hook-up, which aren’t always available; and it does nothing to actually treat human waste.” said Rijsberman in a statement.
World Health Organization had recorded an estimated a total 2.5 billion people don’t have any access to toilets, this lack of toilet access encourages the spread of diarrheal diseases, which are blamed for the deaths of 1.5 million children each year.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have given eight grants to universities or individuals who can build a toilet 2.0. Here is the link of the PDF that was given by the foundation. Click here: Reinvent the toilet challenge.
Here is also a list of universities and individuals who were responding to the call of reinventing the toilet.
- Loughborough University in the UK, Andrew Cotton – making a toilet that will “recover water and salt from feces and urine.”
- Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Georgios Stefanidis – generates electricity from waste.
- University of Toronto, Yu-Ling Cheng – making a toilet that “sanitize feces within 24 hours”
- California Institute of Technology, Michael Hoffmann – plans to develop a solar-powered toilet.