Bill & Melinda Gates

Bill Gates has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a mission to reimagine the humble toilet. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he describes what the future of sanitation may look like. 

The toilets of the future don’t need sewer lines. One proposed model doesn’t even need flush water. They can run off the grid and turn human waste, or fecal sludge in the industry’s parlance, into electricity and clean water.

A TOILET IS like a “super vaccine,” says Doulaye Kone of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “It kills disease where it is produced.” Traditional sanitation systems are costly to build and maintain, so the foundation’s Reinvented Toilet initiative is helping to develop alternatives such as the toilets seen here. Safe and inexpensive to operate, these commodes can function without running water and, in some cases, electricity. They’re also sustainable, eliminating pathogens while recovering nutrients and energy.

Tweets by @BillGates