Bill Gates funds world sanitation project
Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, attends the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. (July 7, 2011) Credit: Getty Images
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched a program Tuesday aimed at "reinventing the toilet," and providing $42 million in grants to create and test new approaches to improve sanitation in the developing world. The projects were announced at a conference in Rwanda.
The sanitation revolution, which started in the 18th century with the introduction of the flush toilet and sewers, "has saved more lives than any innovation in the history of public health or medical science," said Frank Rijsberman, director of the foundation's Water, Sanitation and Hygiene initiative.
It also boosted economic growth by reducing waterborne diseases such as cholera and severe diarrhea.
But that transformation reached only one-third of the world, and the problem has only grown worse.
About 40 percent of people still have no access to safe, sanitary toilets, and 1 billion practice open defecation, according to the World Health Organization. Food and water tainted with human waste cause diseases that lead to about 1.5 million deaths of children a year.
The new grants aim to develop affordable latrines, promote sanitation in communities and find new ways to capture and store waste, processing it into energy, fertilizer and even fresh water.
-- Seattle Times
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
