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Gates Foundation spent $200M funding toilet research

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Re: Gates Foundation spent $200M funding toilet research

#121

Post by wongarsu »

gtsteve wrote: post #106
baybal2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Western toilets aren’t the answer, because they require a massive infrastructure of sewer lines and treatment plants that just isn’t feasible in many poor countries. Then build it! No magic tricks there. I think, this is the most infuriating trait I see in all Silicon Valley "sophisticated person" types.

I'm not a civil engineer but I do work with them occasionally. There are numerous challenges with this, probably the hardest is water pressure: if the water pressure cannot be guaranteed then poor plumbing can send waste water back into the water main, which is a really big problem. I also assume that to ensure water pressure involves electricity - a lot of poorer countries do not have a constant or reliable electric…

>I also assume that to ensure water pressure involves electricity - a lot of poorer countries do not have a constant or reliable electricity supply.

Today water pressure in the western world is mostly generated by running finely controlled electric pumps constantly, but it wasn't too long ago that water towers were used everywhere to maintain water pressure. The advantage of a water tower is that you can run an inaccurate oversized pump occasionally to fill up the reservoir on top of the tower, and gravity does the rest of the work.

Of course building a tower capable of holding many tons of water is a comparably complex civil engineering task and is costly in materials.

Re: Gates Foundation spent $200M funding toilet research

#122

Post by C1sc0cat »

majani wrote: post #110

As an African, I can't help but think that all this charity to Africa might be contributing to us lagging behind in the world. With charities helping out so much, will the local government ever get their act together and provide these functions of public sanitation like they are supposed to? Or will they keep stealing public health funds in the knowledge that charity will always swoop down to save the day? Charities…

Would you rather keep the horrific death rate for under 5's

Re: Gates Foundation spent $200M funding toilet research

#123

Post by kiriakasis »

baybal2 wrote: post #114
blowski wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Build what? What trait?

Infrastructure: power stations, grid, water supply, sewage, roads, garbage removal. Without that, you have no functioning cities, and without that, no modern day economy. > What trait? The believes in all kinds of trickery. No will to deal with issues the straight way. Such people spend more time looking for a shortcut, than dealing with an issue at hand. Look: Mr. Gates spent $200m on a magic toilet that is nowhere…

> Look: Mr. Gates spent $200m on a magic toilet that is nowhere to be found. That's enough to build 5 small electric power stations, and 5 small sewage treatment plants in a third world country.

There was a nice movie about an engineer that was in Thailand (not sure about the country) to build a dam. long story short a civil war start in the country and he is a main target because infrastructure investment from outside to build an infrastructure you cannot maintain only puts you in a death spiral of debt.

Re: Gates Foundation spent $200M funding toilet research

#124

Post by jcims »

halbritt wrote: post #42
seibelj wrote: post #4

Has anyone tried to make an SV startup-style company sell Japanese-type toilets in America? I think a lot of people would like them

I have a couple of Toto toilets in my house. They have washlets that fit most of their products. I have one. I don't mean to overstate this, but it is life-changing. I can't imagine going back to a time when I used only paper and considered that sufficient.

Holy moly, how do you pick a specific toilet from that lineup? That's hilarious.

Re: Gates Foundation spent $200M funding toilet research

#125

Post by teddyh »

manav wrote: post #83

I've always wondered why we never really saw toilets in Star Trek. They never really could re-imagine them back then (or now). I have several fully automatic Totos (which have to abide by California/US water usage rules).. and while the bidets, seat heating, and automisting (it sprays water every 15-30 seconds to try to keep the bowl clean) features are nice the water limits and bowl design make it a pain to clean an…

> I've always wondered why we never really saw toilets in Star Trek.

When the original series was made, you couldn’t show a toilet on TV – it simply wasn’t allowed.

But, beginning in 1989 with the release of the feature film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, you do get the occasional glimpse of an actual toilet here and there.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Toilet

Re: Gates Foundation spent $200M funding toilet research

#126

Post by NeedMoreTea »

monadgonad wrote: post #94
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly you only need to replace the lid+seat to get those. There's a few companies selling Japanese bidet seats in the UK and some that provide translated control panels. No reason they wouldn't succeed in the US too. Only the highest priced ones are the complete toilet.

> There's a few companies selling Japanese bidet seats in the UK Do you have one? Are you able to make any recommendations? I'm considering getting one, but how are they powered? The idea of a power socket in my bathroom is slightly horrifying.

We decided not to in the end.

Power is easy. Only sockets allowed in bathrooms are low voltage shaver sockets with isolating transformer.

For storage heaters, these seats, and heated towel rails in your bathroom you connect to a fixed, fused, double pole switch, spur outlet. Something like this: https://www.screwfix.com/p/mk-13a-dp-switched-fused-connecti...

Re: Gates Foundation spent $200M funding toilet research

#127

Post by lbriner »

manav wrote: post #83

I've always wondered why we never really saw toilets in Star Trek. They never really could re-imagine them back then (or now). I have several fully automatic Totos (which have to abide by California/US water usage rules).. and while the bidets, seat heating, and automisting (it sprays water every 15-30 seconds to try to keep the bowl clean) features are nice the water limits and bowl design make it a pain to clean an…

Yes, composting toilets are absolutely a solution for many countries but for some reason, they have never been well-supported enough to take hold. Many individual examples have been built that use locally available materials (like nets in a fishing village) but these are one-offs.

I saw some UN project but of course it was 20 toilets and 50,000 pages of reports and paperwork so that didn't really work out.

For much less money, Bill Gates could have produced some internationally accepted standard designs that could be open sourced for local production and even "flat pack" style for people to easily construct.

The guy has a great heart but this does look like a case of tech seeing everything as a technical problem.

Re: Gates Foundation spent $200M funding toilet research

#128

Post by woogiewonka »

tialaramex wrote: post #112
sonnyblarney wrote: post #109

I admire Gates a lot, but for him and way too many technophiles the answer is somehow always tech. Africa does not have a toilet problem. Or a tech problem. Or even a resources problem. They have a lack of intelligent social organization problem; i.e. dysfunctional or non-existent institutions, laws and organizational structures, as well as myriad forms of corruption from top to bottom that make it impossible to crea…

One of the things Gates' money pays for is Guinea Worm Eradication. Guinea Worm is literally a parasitic worm. The eradication programme isn't about injecting people with a vaccination, building modern water treatment plants or deploying sophisticated drone technology, it's stuff like: - Here are some free water filters. Filter the water from that murky pond before you drink it. - When you have a worm, don't go in th…

I googled Guinea Worms and was pleasantly surprised to see Jimmy Carter working on the problem. Supposedly, the worm is 99.9% eradicated and is on its way to be completely wiped off the face of the earth. Jimmy Carter and the people involved int his are awesome!

Re: Gates Foundation spent $200M funding toilet research

#129

Post by cyphar »

halbritt wrote: post #42
seibelj wrote: post #4

Has anyone tried to make an SV startup-style company sell Japanese-type toilets in America? I think a lot of people would like them

I have a couple of Toto toilets in my house. They have washlets that fit most of their products. I have one. I don't mean to overstate this, but it is life-changing. I can't imagine going back to a time when I used only paper and considered that sufficient.

In a large part of central Europe they have bidets, which is a lower-tech version of the same thing.

Re: Gates Foundation spent $200M funding toilet research

#130

Post by pbhjpbhj »

torgian wrote: post #98
gnarbarian wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really all you'd need to do to drastically improve things is get them to simply dig a hole for an outhouse instead of the rampant open defecation seen in India and some parts of Africa. We can solve the more complex and exponentially expensive problems of water treatment later. Digging a deep hole gets rid of rampant cholera and incidental exposure. Basically you've got to learn to crawl before you can run a 10k. edi…

Doesn’t really work for China though. Plenty of public toilets around, and people (mostly children) will still take a shit in the street. Hell, I was in Chongqing a couple months ago and saw a teenager literally unzip, in full view of everyone, and pea on (on, not into) a recycling bin. Next to a god damn public toilet. In the middle of a shopping center. Near a police officer. A lot of people just don’t care.

Still gross, but, does human urination spread any diseases?

Taking a shit in the street is perhaps not such a problem if you clean it up afterwards? Culture is hard to change, but perhaps it can be accommodated?

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