Bill Gates, co-founder of
Microsoft, on Tuesday, unveiled a futuristic toilet that uses chemicals to turn
human waste into fertilizer.
Gates unveiled that toilet at a
trade event in Shanghai, China, where he lauded the globalised and free trade
systems that made the toilet technology possible.
He explained that the toilet does
not need water or sewers.
“I honestly believe trade allows
every country to do what it’s best at,” Gates said.
“So when I talk about components
of this toilet being made in China, others in Thailand, others in the U.S, –
you really want to be bringing together all of that IQ so that you’re getting
that combination.”
The toilet, which Gates said was
ready for sale after years of development, is the brainchild of research
projects funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
“The current toilet simply sends
the waste away in the water, whereas these toilets don’t have the sewer,” Gates
said.
“They take both the liquids and
solids and do chemical work on it, including burning it in most cases.”
He compared the change from
traditional toilets to waterless models as similar to the computing revolution
around the time he founded Microsoft in the 1970s.
“In the way that a personal
computer is sort of self contained, not a gigantic thing, we can do this
chemical processing at the household level,” he said.
Gates’ foundation has committed
about $200 million to the toilet project and expects to spend the same amount
again before the toilets are viable for wide-scale distribution.
“This year the volume of toilets
will literally be in the 100s while people are still kicking tires (testing
them),” he said.
Gates said the next step for the
project is to pitch the concept to manufacturers, saying he expects the market
for the toilets to be over $6 billion by 2030.
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