Gates Foundation Leads Search for Alternative Toilets

Led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, several groups around the world are exploring alternatives to the flush toilet to stem disease and improve water quality in regions that lack effective sewage treatment, The New York Times writes.

The foundation has dispensed $3-million in grants to organizations seeking to build new-model toilets that do not require connection to large-scale sewer systems, which in much of the developing world are either lacking or are aging and overburdened by rapid population growth.

Among the prototypes being developed by researchers in California, South Africa, and elsewhere are devices that use solar power or chemical reactions to process waste.

Read a Chronicle of Philanthropy blog post on the Gates Foundation’s “Reinvent the Toilet” competition.