speaking of toilets, everyone will be familiar with it.
A place built by human beings for human beings (or other specified organisms, such as livestock) to carry out physiological excretion and place (treat) excreta. That is to say, where there are people, toilets are essential. In fact, the relationship between people and toilets is quite close. How many times does that person go to the toilet less than a day? As the saying goes, people have three emergencies, and "internal emergency" refers to going to the toilet.
In the ordinary people's consciousness, the toilet is no big deal, just make do. As everyone knows, toilets have a great relationship with our lives. In places with poor sanitary conditions, because the excrement in the toilets is not properly disposed, outbreaks and epidemics of infectious diseases are common.
"Where there is no safety and sanitation facilities ... it is these pathogens that cause diseases such as diarrhea, cholera and typhoid fever ... and nearly half a million children under five die every year. "Bill Gates said.
The era has entered the 21st century, and the things around us have already undergone earth-shaking changes. Only the toilet has changed the least, and it is time to pay attention to the toilet. Why do you say that? Look at the history of the toilet to understand what is going on.
According to research, the earliest toilets appeared in Mesopotamia, Indus Valley and Scotland before 25 BC.
In 2 BC, flushing toilets were used in Crete.
from 1 to 5, the Romans used flushing toilets and built a sewer system.
in the 16th century, rich people in Europe used pages as toilet paper and began to use toilets.
In 159, the British inventor Lord John Harrington invented the flush toilet.
in 1738, French architect blondel improved the flushing toilet. In the 197s, the industrial revolution took place in Britain, and Britain and France installed indoor toilets in their buildings.
in 187, Hellier, an Englishman, invented the modern flushing toilet, and Americans began to install indoor toilets in buildings.
In 1884, British plumber Thomas Clapper improved and began to sell toilets. In 1982, water-saving toilets began to be widely used.
I didn't scare you. Yes, our current toilet is still the modern flushing toilet invented by the British in 187. Later, what we did was only to make some improvements in water saving, but the basic principle has not changed, and it is basically a "flush".
You know, other everyday objects around us have changed for generations. For example, lighting at home: kerosene lamp-incandescent lamp-fluorescent lamp -LED lamp;
telephone: analog signal dial-up fixed telephone-digital signal push-button fixed telephone;
and mobile phones, which appeared in the 198s, have been updated for many generations?
From: vision china
In contrast, the toilet that has the closest relationship with us has been forgotten by people, and there is no fundamental change. At best, it is just a fuss about water saving.
The development of the times needs subversive technology to carry out the "toilet revolution" to the end to meet people's growing material and cultural needs.
Toilet revolution
Toilet revolution refers to an initiative to transform toilets in developing countries. It was first put forward by UNICEF. Toilet is an important symbol to measure civilization, and improving toilet hygiene is directly related to people's health and environmental conditions in these countries.
The toilet revolution has long been a worldwide topic. According to the data of the World Toilet Organization, 2.4 billion people in the world do not have toilets or live in poor sanitation, which causes a lot of diseases in some countries, because direct pollutants cause soil, food and water pollution.
the toilet problem is not only related to the improvement of the tourism environment, but also to the improvement of the working and living environment of the broad masses of people, and to the improvement of national quality and social civilization.
As an important yardstick for measuring tourism services, toilets are sometimes regarded as the key for a country to "maintain its reputation and increase its investment confidence". The Singapore Public Toilet Association believes that people spend more than three years in the toilet in their lifetime, and the toilet is a major event for both individuals and the country.
The traditional toilet has the following disadvantages:
If the excrement is directly washed away with water without treatment, it will pollute food and water sources and cause intestinal diseases, resulting in the death of 1.5 million children under five years old every year, which is higher than that caused by AIDS and malaria.
"Only the toilet stinks", which has a remarkable smell;
Archaeological evidence in indus valley civilization shows that flush toilets have existed since about 3 BC, but in different forms. However, the water consumption of contemporary flush toilets is 1 times that of per capita daily drinking water, which is obviously not suitable in areas with underdeveloped water and sewage networks.
Therefore, the world's best scientists and inventors are putting their energy and knowledge into this unpleasant but actually important problem and coming up with some ingenious solutions.
Bill Gates, the co-founder and philanthropist of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, is always one step ahead of others.
Gates said on Twitter: "At present, 4% of the world's population still does not enjoy a safe way to go to the toilet." To solve this problem, the Gates Foundation provided $4, to research institutions of eight universities in 211 to develop better toilets.
For developing countries that lack energy and infrastructure, Gates puts forward high requirements for new toilets, including not using running water, electricity or excrement disposal system, not producing pollutants, and preferably getting energy or other resources from excrement. The daily operating cost is about 5 cents.
On August 14th, 212, Bill Gates, the co-founder and philanthropist of Microsoft Corporation of the United States, presented awards to the winners of the "toilet revolution" initiated by Microsoft Corporation in Seattle. This activity was aimed at solving the problem of people in developing countries' difficulty in going to the toilet, and collecting safe, efficient and cheap excreta treatment system designs by way of reward.
The first prize of this year belongs to California Institute of Technology. The college designed a solar toilet that can generate hydrogen and electricity, and won a prize of $1,.
The designer of Loughborough University in the UK won the second prize for developing a technology to convert excrement into biochar, minerals and water.
The third prize was won by the University of Toronto, Canada. Designers developed a technology that can sterilize feces and extract minerals and water from them.
It is gratifying that most of the designs convert solid waste into energy, and some of them convert into other substances, such as animal feed and irrigation water.
In a statement published on his personal website, Gates wrote: "Toilets are very important for public health, even related to human dignity ... The flushing toilets we use every day are irrelevant, unrealistic and impossible for 4% of the people in the world, because these people lack water, sewers, electricity and sewage treatment systems in their lives."
"Regardless of the issue of dignity, the lack of sanitation facilities threatens people's lives, which makes the poor society bear the economic and health burden and endangers environmental safety." Gates wrote that excreta will pollute food and water sources, cause intestinal diseases, and kill 1.5 million children under the age of five every year, which is higher than the death toll caused by AIDS and malaria.
"Inventing new toilets is one of the most important things we can do to reduce children's deaths and diseases and improve human life ... It can also help rich countries protect water sources".
"new generation toilet"?
November 7, 218, Beijing, New Generation Toilet Expo.
In front of the podium, Bill Gates held up a beaker and showed the audience the objects contained in it.
Yes, it's not a new material or technology, but human excrement with 2 trillion Shigella, rotavirus and 1, parasite eggs.
about 1 billion people can only go to the toilet in the open air. The excrement of more than 4 billion people (including many areas with sewage treatment systems) is not treated safely, which will eventually pollute the environment and endanger human health.
A set of data shows that 4.5 billion people in the world have no access to safe sanitation facilities; 2.3 billion people cannot enjoy the most basic health services; In the past five years, the popularity of safety and health solutions has increased by only 3%.
Bill Gates said, "More than half of the world's population use unsafe sanitation facilities. Pathogens in their feces enter local water sources, making people sick.
Innovation was once the key driving force behind China's economic transformation, and I am optimistic that it can also play the same role in improving health conditions. As I wrote in yesterday's article, a new generation of toilets without sewers has the ability to completely change the lives of millions of people. "
Let's see, in seven years, what is the face of the new generation of toilet technology without sewer connection that Gates sought?
What is a "new generation" toilet
Keywords: no sewer connection, universal processor technology, off-grid toilet technology, distributed toilet and so on.
Pursue goals: sanitation (which can remove pathogens from human excreta and make use of effective resources in it), energy saving (without external water source and drainage pipeline system), cheapness (the daily use cost per person is less than 5 cents) and most importantly, comfort.
realize the separation of feces and urine from the source, biotransform the feces and urine, and finally convert them into fertilizer through deodorization and fermentation.
At present, the technical problems faced by "new generation toilets" are being solved one after another.
firstly, the management of feces. Gates cooperated with China enterprises to invent a "universal processor" to treat feces and organic sludge collected from latrines, septic tanks and sewer pipes. It has enough power to support its operation and can be placed anywhere;
the second is to eliminate pathogens in toilets. Built-in micro-treatment equipment in the self-contained new toilet can realize the degradation and sterilization of feces and produce clean water and solid substances. These solid substances can be used as fertilizers or can be safely discharged outdoors without further treatment.
The new toilets are of different shapes and colors, and there are complex sewage treatment systems under the sitting and squatting toilets. Some of them are made into fully transparent shells, and the functional differences of each part in the toilet are indicated by colored lights ... Their similarities are that they use high technology to eliminate harmful pathogens and turn waste into treasure.
Gates' obsession with toilet renovation
As early as 29, Gates had begun to think about the problem of human excrement. He once asked some scientists and engineers whether it is possible to use more economical methods to eliminate pathogens, which can not only meet the needs of rapid urban development, but also save the already scarce hydropower resources without connecting sewers.
The road to toilet innovation:
The gradual change method optimizes all links of excrement treatment without changing the overall pipe network system.
The new generation toilets are claimed to kill pathogens and have built-in micro-processing equipment. It can effectively treat all kinds of bacteria in feces, realize the degradation and sterilization of human feces, and produce clean water and solid substances. It combines the three links of collection, transportation and treatment into a new product. It is a new generation toilet which can handle the waste by itself and be self-sufficient.
The invention brought by California Institute of Technology is the ECO-SAN processing system. It can use solar energy to extract pure water from feces for toilet flushing, and use electrochemical reactor to decompose water and feces into hydrogen and fertilizer. Hydrogen can be used as energy to run hydrogen fuel cells, and fertilizer can be used for agricultural planting. This system can be used by 5-8 people every day.
Cranfield University has introduced a new type of dry combustion toilet, with a toilet at the front end and a new type of waterless toilet flushing method, and all waste disposal components are installed in the base. At the back end, the solid waste is extracted by a specially designed screw, then dried and burned, and the liquid is preheated and purified by a hydrophobic membrane. Different from the design of California Institute of Technology, this product is launched for families and can be used by up to 1 people every day.
The new toilet brought by Professor Zheng Yuling from the University of Toronto is also designed for unit families. The prototype exhibited at the New Generation Toilet Expo has a squatting toilet at the front end and a solid-liquid disinfection device at the back end. The advantages of this device are the stewing technology that can generate heat energy continuously and stably when treating feces, and the pasteurization of liquid by recovering steam heat energy when solids are dried.
In the future, homes, apartment buildings, factories, parks and other places will be the use scenes of the new generation toilets.
Up to now, no effective solution has been found to the problem of high price.
Gates also admitted that seven years after the challenge, the price of new toilets has remained high. Some new generation toilets cost more than $1, per unit. As for the goal of $.5 per person per day, it is still far away. The Gates Foundation has decided to invest an additional $2 million.
Bill Gates himself admits that the initial cost of building a "new generation" toilet may exceed $1,, but the marginal cost will be lower and lower in the later period. The real challenge is to "reduce the cost from $2, to $5".
Gates also said that the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the African Development Bank will invest $2.5 billion to join the "health revolution".
It should be said that the technology of "new generation toilets" is basically mature, and the remaining work is that more enterprises will participate, the government will give greater support and promotion, and people's concepts will be updated. Then, it is just around the corner to solve the problem of "flushing it".