Bill Gates did it! And you? Are you willing to pay for a glass of that water?
Is it really safe? Does it have all the nutritional element we need?
One of the by-products is energy.
"This Ingenious Machine Turns Feces Into Drinking Water
By Bill Gates
January 5, 2015
"I watched the piles of feces go up the conveyer belt and drop into a large bin. They made their way through the machine, getting boiled and treated. A few minutes later I took a long taste of the end result: a glass of delicious drinking water.
The occasion was a tour of a facility that burns human waste and produces water and electricity (plus a little ash). I have visited lots of similar sites, like power plants and paper mills, so when I heard about this one—it’s part of the Gates Foundation’s effort to improve sanitation in poor countries—I was eager to check it out.
The water tasted as good as any I’ve had out of a bottle. And having studied the engineering behind it, I would happily drink it every day. It’s that safe.
Here’s a short video from my visit in November, which explains how it all works:"
http://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Omniprocessor-From-Poop-to-Potable
Dear Ting Fa
I think the man is still a top predator, yet his mind remains awake when it comes to survival. Certainly happens ingeniously create technologies to reduce the impact of various pollution it generated. But in my humble opinion it remains dependent on natural resources that squanders at an exponential rate. The global demographics curve goes beyond food production. We will go more towards agriculture intensiveen more GMO source of pollution and contamination on the ecotoxicological plan. Organic farming is an illusion because a minority of people have access while the fair famine ravaging in noubreux country. It seems to me that two schools of thought in the hope that the one that provides the solution to all our humanity on food and health plan. I still believe in human responsiveness when cornered provided he is not selfish.
sincerely
Fadel Djamel
Omniprocessor seems to be a very useful invention considering that many are dying due to poor sanitation.
The Omniprocessor was designed and built by Janicki Bioenergy, an engineering firm based north of Seattle, and unlike modern sewage plants, the Omniprocessor doesn’t burn up waste using diesel or some other fuel. It has electricity to spare and its steam engine allows it to produce enough energy to burn the next batch of waste. The next step for Bill and Melinda is to set one up in Dakar, Senegal and work with the local community. Right now, some 700,000 children die a year from diseases related to poor sanitation, but that can change with innovative tools and minds like the Ominiprocessor and Bill Gates.
see: http://www.buzzworthy.com/bill-gates-tries-revolutionary-machine-turns-feces-water/
It can be used. In future getting drinking water will be a big problem. We have to save water and use consciously. Recycling of waste water is essential for sustainability. We, in our university, have started Sewage Water Treatment Plant to treat and recycle the waste water to make the deficiency of water. Initially, this treated water will be used for Horticulture and Other purposes.
Next step, in the next project, will be to treat water further to make and convert it into useable form, may be segregated form. This is the one of the way to cope with shortage of water. Before use, it must be tested for health purposes. As long as drinkable water is sufficient, no body will use.
I think using properly treated sewage water is the need of time in light of the continuously decreasing water resources and burgeoning global population.
With due respect to Bill Gates, some times research is directed into bizarre paths which involve huge losses of money & effort eventually. Research to obtain drinking water from sewage means that general scientific research is in "dismal & helpless" state. Well, we live on an earth which has water as its main component. Where is the serious well-supported research to bring plenty of very cheap household water from oceans, seas, rivers, ... and even clouds?
This question depends on the context: in developed countries, sanitation is widespread so feces is not a widespread component of natural water systems. In Mexico City, some years ago I read that a large part of the haze over the city was actually composed of dried feces, so when it rains, it must be getting in pretty much everywhere. In Delhi, the tap water contained 5ppm of feces and in other Indian cities, the situation is probably worse. The point is, that one is drinking this mixture anyway in developing countries. The question is, what is the concentration one can tolerate. If Bill Gates is sponsoring a machine that removes all fecal matter, I would rather drink that water than 'drinking water' supplied in cities like Delhi, which contain an unavoidable admixture of feces.
I think the people in Liverpool have had tap water from processed sewage for years. This is normal to them.
Priority should be given to available water resources management measures. From the video I see that this technology is not cost effective and it is hardly applicable in poor countries.
I do not prefer the idea of paying for drinking water derived from sewage.
Arizona Snowbowl will be the first ski resort in the world to produce artificial snow using only water and sewage drains. It is a decision that would be a revolution, "ecologist" of snowmaking, but which today is hotly debated: worries environmentalists and local population to some studies on the liquid which is then transformed into fake white flakes.
In this case the payment of water derived from sewage is mandatory.
No, thanks a lot. I am not willing to pay for drinking water derived from sewage, I am not Bill Gates!
Why don't we CONSERVE and make good use of RAIN WATER, river water, spring water, and improve our technologies to share that water between NATIONS than to resort to use water from sewage? Why not improve our hydrology to tackle our flood problems and MAKE THAT USEFUL WATER, CLEANER WATER AVAILABLE FOR ALL? (This is our RG friend whose expertise is in this area. Why is he still unemployed, as of today? Perhaps Bill Gates should know about Raoof.)
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Raoof_Mostafazadeh
Dear @Ting, here are the facts describing the show! "...Fallon, of course, turned the conversation into a hilarious bit when Gates challenged him to drink from two glasses of water and to guess which one was the bottled water and which was “the poop water.” Fallon drank, guessed and Gates, with a comedian’s timing, delivered the punch line: “It was rigged. It’s all poop water.” Fallon buckled over in laughter.
Gates didn’t appear on the show to focus on sewage water. He used it as a hook to draw attention to the 2015 Gates Letter which Gates and his wife, Melinda put out every year. The letter is important and includes an optimistic prediction that the lives of people in poor countries will improve faster in the next 15 years than in any other time in history...."
Bill Gates does wonderful job!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2015/01/23/why-bill-gates-is-drinking-poop-water-on-late-night-tv/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/bill-gates-tricks-jimmy-fallon-5030874
This is more a wake up call to the world rather than a debate on quality of water. water is natures gift. let us treat it as one. It has to be a treated as a resource. we have not really been truthful on this so as a first step we are paying for water today. If the situation remains like this we will not have it even after paying for it. Gates foundations is only showing us the future.
if we do not wake up we WILL have to drink the "poop water". Water quality in the developing world is a big issue. It has connect with issues like hygiene and overall development. We already have places and situations where nations are treating sewage water.
Dear discussants,
thank you so much for having begun to look scientifically in depth (in the backstage) the problem of water.
Upstream there are huge problems that industrialization and rising living standards have created on the ecological footprint.
1- the abandonment of grazing and development intensive livestock farming to meet the consumption of milk, cheese and meat of rich populations led to the greenhouse effect (emissions of animals are the second leading cause). Simultaneously, the animal wastes pollute with nitrates stool. It is moist material is highly polluting. Can pollute the ground, passing by rivers (where it creates pathogens) to the sea. This reduces the healthiness of water and soil.
It is therefore necessary to extract the water by means of alternative energies(cost free) and reset pathogens and mineral pollutants. This is a systemic problem that needs to be addressed.
2- the problem of sewers that collect human waste has always existed. Sewers that flow (if not created special scrubbers) in rivers and then into the seas.
The problem is that of improving the whole sewer system and reduction of the spill on the soil and water, but also to try to block the upstream flood of black water that is in intensive pathogens.
I would like you further deepen the discussion.
Kind regards
Ting Fa Marg
Dear @Ting, I have attached very educative page regarding the issue of different types of drinking waters including sewage, many available technologies, discussions on the quality of such water, the psychology of sewage, case study "From Sewage to Potable Water in Singapore"....! "Would you drink water that came from a toilet? The imagery isn’t appealing. Even knowing that the water, once treated, may be cleaner than what comes out of most faucets, many people are disgusted by the idea. But in places like Singapore and Namibia, limited supplies of freshwater are being augmented by adding highly treated wastewater to their drinking water. As climate change and population growth strain freshwater resources, such strategies are likely to become more common around the world, and in the United States."
http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/drinking-toilet-water-science-and-psychology-wastewater-recycling
I do not like paying for drinking water derived from sewage.
Dear all, my country should continue to 'share' our water with Singapore, without grudge. We are one of the countries that consume such a lot of water. Some of us shower 2 or even 3x a day, how wasteful! And if we aren't generous, we have the annual floods to remind some of us of our selfishness!
'The Malaysian government has stated[when?] that the agreements were signed during a different time and that the price should increase. They cite the example of water sold by China to Hong Kong in the past, which was approximately US$5.8 per 1,000 imperial gallons (4,500 L).[1] However, this price comparison is not directly applicable because while Hong Kong has borne the cost of constructing the infrastructure and China has borne the cost of maintaining to provide water to Hong Kong, Singapore paid for all the costs of the reservoirs in Johore, the dams, pipelines, plant, equipment, etc. and Singapore paid all costs of operating and maintaining the infrastructure. On 31 August 2011, the 1961 water agreement expired and the waterworks and facilities were handed over to the Johor state government. The handover included the Skudai and Gunung Pulai water treatment plants, which were built by the Public Utilities Board and managed by them for 50 years, as well as two pump houses in Pontian and Tebrau.[2]
Singapore's water needs are anticipated to double in the next 50 years. Planned Newater output will triple to meet 50% of needs by year 2060 whilst desalination investment will raise output to meet 30% of needs. By the expiry of the 1962 water agreement in 2061, the necessity for Malaysia water import should be eliminated.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_conflicts_between_Malaysia_and_Singapore
Water reliable and sufficient supply is essential for human health, modern industry, and agriculture; in fact it takes a part in any aspect of peoples' life. Throughout the world, clean waters, both for drinking and industrial uses are in short supply, more so in arid and semi-arid areas.
Treated municipal wastewaters are potential water resource from which high quality water can be produced by RO filtration. Also, the environmental need for RO filtration is emerging due to its highest treatment efficiency for removal of anthropogenic compounds including endocrine disrupting chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products.
Reuse of wastewater either for irrigation or drinking is essential in highly populated regions. The disposal of wastewater in our area is of a major concern, secondary wastewater treatment which is the aim for ongoing treatment plans are usually not satisfactory to meet reuse quality guidelines especially for the use with the intensively spread drip irrigation systems.
Therefore, as Ljubomir mentioned earlier, "as climate change and population growth strain freshwater resources, such strategies are likely to become more common around the world", either out of necessity, and or as part of implementing Zero Waste by eliminating "all discharges to land, water or air that are a threat to planetary, human, animal or plant health".
In many arid and semi-arid countries water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource and planners are forced to consider any sources of water which might be used economically and effectively to promote further development.
Recycled water is a reliable source of water that must be taken into account in formulating a sustainable water policy. If recycled water passes all the water quality standards,
Water recycling and reuse is meant to help close the water cycle and therefore enable sustainable reuse of available water resources. When integrated to water resources management, water reuse may be considered as an integral part of the environmental pollution control and water management strategy.
water is becoming scarce , let's use all the available resources. I welcome any new technology that helps solve our planet's water problems!
Dear All,
If human “civilization” continues the present trends, each of us will pay for water of similar origin.
Dear All,
Millions of Europeans drink the water of Danube which is polluted without guilty conscience by the most European countries where Danube flows through.
Someone claims "Water Has Memory"!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILSyt_Hhbjg
As many answers above -- "we are not ready to pay for drinking water derived from sewage. ...". Think about future! For sustainable future we have to! When drinkable water will be in short supply as in many places of the world, what to do then. Better to think about future! For sustainability! We have to, when no option left.
Is it really possible to eliminate the impact of organic and non-organic substances from sewage and be sure that the water is pure and does not contain contaminated substances. I can not be sure; so, I say NO thanks.
This is not todays question. This is the question of future and sustainability. Today we may think "Not to Take".
What kind of water can we use for drinking? Tap water contains oestrogen, which causes male sterility (it is not filtered even through powerful filters).Bought water is mainly distillate (too harmful for organism).Artesian water is not under control of sanitary inspection.Even baptismal fount is egregious in-sanitation. Materials, polluting water: heightened concentration of manganese (causes child's feeblemindedness), iron (cancer of liver, bowels), ftorion, boron, ammonia, cadmium,surface-active agent, nitrate, arsenic, lead, sulphate, fluoride, chloride, chrome, zinc. Population suffers a lack of iodine, magnesium, fluorine.I'm not sure (in the frame of corruption), but we should look at the labels on the bottles and buy "mineral, natural, drinking, table-water"
I think this question is too baroque. It is certainly interesting in absolute for man if he does not remain selfish to think of those who do not have access to safe drinking water in many countries of the world. Certainly the man is intelligent long as it acts of kindness and let his ego.
Best regards
Dear All,
I think that the real situation does not consider people’ desire. I believe cleaned sewage water is mixed automatically to clean (?) freshwater. Please, get information where you live!
Dear All,
I may ask you: are you willing to eat transgenic soya in your sausage? But you do it.
"The human right to water entitles everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses", UN CESC - General Comment 15, para.2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_water
Dear Ting and All,
I think we should focus on using properly treated sewage water for other useful applications, particularly for irrigation purpose because irrigation still consumes about 75% of the total developed water sources on global scale, rather than using it for drinking purposes, because drinking water share is below 0.5% of the total developed water sources.
The new source of water is essentially composed by our alimentary residual and intestinal microbiota, Alimentary residual is what we have ingested but not digested and absorbed, whilst intestiaìnal microbiota is a mix of milliards of bacteria containing an amount of DNA ten times greater of that of the host (humans). Moreover, intestinal microbiota is considered to interact with the host acting as a "real organ in the organ". Some severe and often lethal disease such as the colitis by Clostridium difficilis may be safely cured in few days by fecal transplantation. Finally, the sewage is discharged into the sea from the sewer and we think in the future to extract seawater, desalinize and use it for domestic purposes. In conclusion, the water produced by the procedure of Bill Gates could be much more "organic" than you can imagine and a careful selection process of bacterial flora contained in it may even cure some diseases.
Dear @Enzo and all, I will be happy to view the process positively like Enzo. I'm glad to note from Marg's link: 'Our goal is to make the processors cheap enough that entrepreneurs in low- and middle-income countries will want to invest in them and then start profitable waste-treatment businesses.' (But machines do have breakdowns. In this event, how can consumers know that the water is safe to drink at all? How will breakdown affect consumers of this water?)
I'm an optimistic person, too, that's why I like our dear Miranda's, Enzo's and All our friends' answers on this our dear Ting Fa's question. The quantity of water on the Jupiter's satellite -Europe is in comparison with the quantity of water on the Earth.
According to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation, at least 1.8 billion people world-wide are estimated to drink water that is faecally contaminated.
An even greater number drink water which is delivered through a system without adequate protection against sanitary hazards.
Based on this stats, we have to use every possible means to provide safe drinking water for everyone.
The next step is to set one Omniprocessor up in Dakar, Senegal where many children have died from diseases related to poor sanitation. I imagine that they would drink it happily as many of us would if we were In their shoes.
According to National Resource Defence Council, Safe Water is a Keystone of Environment, Health, Economy and Security! "Providing safe water is an essential step for human health and development. Global awareness of this issue is rising, but our leaders need to take concrete action in order to solve this crisis in the next decade. By encouraging leadership and generating momentum for solutions, we can save millions of lives." Good resources are attached!
http://www.nrdc.org/international/safewater.asp
http://www.nrdc.org/water/files/Clean-Water-Report-Card.pdf
http://www.nrdc.org/international/peril-facts.asp
http://www.nrdc.org/water/sanitation/sani.asp
Dear @Behrouz
I think we should take the following facts into consideration:
Dakar is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean from three sides.
Nominal GDP (Per capita) in Senegal is $1,057 (see link below).
Internationally, the production cost of 1 m3 of fresh water by sea water desalination using RO technology can be $0.5.
Ten liter/day (per capita for drinking only) of drinking water means 3.65 m3/year (per capita). This quantity of drinking water will cost about $1.8/year (per capita).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senegal
In case of acute shortage of water, it may happen! But in near future for drinking water at least, there is no need to pay.
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