You might not want to pack a picnic lunch for this summer event.
Researchers from China, Switzerland, Britain, the Netherlands,
Canada and California have flocked to Seattle this week for the
"Reinvent the Toilet Fair," a two-day showcase hosted by the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Forget the bathroom humor.
This is serious sh*t. In a YouTube video calling for a "toilet
revolution," the foundation called for "new ideas to help reduce
disease and find new ways to turn crap into valuable stuff, like
fuel, fertilizer, and fresh water." The problem was put
succinctly by Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and
philanthropist, in a tweet this week: "4 out of 10 people don’t
have a safe way to poop - that’s 2.6 billion!" Gates took on the
mission of building a better toilet a year ago. As he recently
told the Times of India, 1.5 million children die each year due
to severe diarrhea caused by poor sanitation because they lack
the kind of toilets that affluent countries take for granted.
"Finding a new toilet desig