Extract
Bill Gates thinks toilets are a serious business, and he’s betting big that a reinvention of this most essential of conveniences can save a half million lives and deliver $200bn-plus in savings.
The billionaire philanthropist, whose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation spent $200m over seven years funding sanitation research, showcased about 20 novel toilet and sludge-processing designs that eliminate harmful pathogens and convert bodily waste into clean water and fertiliser.
“The technologies you’ll see here are the most significant advances in sanitation in nearly 200 years,” Gates told the Reinvented Toilet Expo in Beijing on Tuesday.