Saturday, 17 December 2016

Necessity is the mother of invention

In 2011, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched a water and sanitation programme entitled 'The Reinvent the Toilet Challenge" in a bid to find sustainable sanitation solutions to help the billions of people worldwide without access to improved sanitation facilities. The foundation offers grants to researchers around the world trying to come up with innovative toilet designs that meet a number of guidelines set by the foundation.

The guidelines state that the toilet must:
  • Remove germs from human waste and recover valuable resources such as energy, clean water, and nutrients.
  • Operate "off the grid" without connections to water, sewer, or electrical lines.
  • Cost less than US$0.05 cents per user per day.
  • Promote sustainable and financially profitable sanitation services and businesses that operate in poor, urban settings.
  • Be a truly aspirational next-generation product that everyone will want to use-in developed as well as developing nations.

 

This is an interesting and ingenious approach to water and sanitation development that will hopefully provide new answers to the problems facing sanitation provision in Africa's urban slums. If you would like to know more about this project or the other philanthropic sanitation work the Gates Foundation is carrying out follow this link. 
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4 comments:

  1. Unknown18 December 2016 at 05:13

    Hi Freddy,

    Do you think the benefits of private international philanthropy outweigh the negatives (if there are any)?

    Robert

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    Replies
    1. Freddy19 December 2016 at 08:26

      Hi Rob,

      I do think the benefits of private philanthropy outweigh the negatives, but it is by no means an ideal solution and should be applied carefully and thoughtfully. All over the world governments are failing to provide certain critical services that require immediate action. While private philanthropy has been very successful in stepping in and providing such services, the bigger issue is why these governments and societies cannot solve these problems themselves in the first place. Philanthropy must be carried out in a sustainable fashion in order to solve immediate crises and also promote independent, functioning societies.

      I would really recommend this article :

      https://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/

      It provides a very well argued and thought provoking critique of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

      Freddy.

      Delete
  2. Ana-Lin19 December 2016 at 06:33

    Hi Freddy

    This seems like a very good, cost-effective idea in theory, have there been many successful cases of this?

    Also I was wondering what the maintenance of such a toilet would look like, whether it would be deemed acceptable depending on which community it is installed in and if maintenance is expensive?

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    Replies
    1. Freddy19 December 2016 at 09:29

      Hi Ana,

      Good questions. I started replying and then found this video which I think answers all your questions in a much more detailed way than I possibly could!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI4EZjfcKHI

      Freddy.



      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI4EZjfcKHI

      Freddy.

      Delete

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