Bill Gates has decided to get involved with a re-invention of the toilet. “No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet, ” said, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, President of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s global development program.
She mentioned that the toilet only reached about one-third of the world. Over a billion people defecate out into the open which causes major health impacts in many places around the world. Over a million children die each year from diarrhea due to contact with human feces. The foundation is helping the effort to solve this issue by putting $42 million in grants to find better ways of capturing and containing waste. Some ideas included turning human waste into fuel and having waterless toilets that don’t need a large sewer system to operate.
Even though he has stepped down from Microsoft, Bill Gates continues to be very actively involved in using his resources to help solve global issues.