You are here
Gates Foundation - Reinvent the Toilet Fair - Andrew Larsen, Andrea Koestler, Fontes Foundation - Attractive and Very Low Cost Emergency Sanitation Structure
Primary tabs
Andrew Larsen and Andrea Koestler of the Fontes Foundation have developed an attractive and very low cost emergency sanitation structure. Five toilet units are grouped on a vented pentagonal structure which allows pee and poop to fall directly into a box containing the composting pile. When it’s filled up, the toilet structure and steps are unbolted and moved to a new pentagonal composting box at a different location. Learner says that people really don’t like emptying toilets. Used plastic billboard ads are used for the walls and roof and to cover the wooden box commodes and floors of each stall, making them easy to clean. The attractive structures are being used in Haiti, but would be suitable for outdoor festivals and events anywhere in the world.
phlush.org - August 17, 2012
This week, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Reinvent the Toilet Fair brought together innovators seeking to define the next generation of toilet technologies. After receiving grants over a year ago, university teams, small firms, and non-profit groups set to work, meeting a short deadline and compelling criteria: toilets must remove pathogens, recover energy and nutrients, operate off-grid, cost less than 5 cents per user per day, and appeal to people in both high-income and low-income nations. On Monday, teams from all over the world set up and fake poop was distributed. On Tuesday, Bill Gates awarded prizes to teams from Cal Tech, Longborough University and the University of Toronto and announced new grants.
Fontes Foundation - http://fontes.no/org/
Comments
Gates-Funded Future Toilet
fastcoexist.com - February 20, 2014
The inside story of how Caltech engineers and Kohler designers are testing a toilet technology that could significantly improve the health of 2.5 billion people around the world. It might even appear in U.S. bathrooms, too.
Yan Qu and Clement Cid spend a lot more time thinking about poop than your average academics. The pair, both at Caltech, are part of a team working on what could be the future of bathrooms: a self-cleaning, solar-powered toilet that turns human waste into hydrogen and fertilizer.
In 2012, their toilet won the Gates Foundation's Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, which asked entrants to create a safe, cheap, and hygienic toilet--one that could serve the 2.5 billion people around the world who lack access to safe sanitation. Now the toilet system is getting some help from the toilet maker Kohler and taking a trip to India for testing.
(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)