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Waste to Water

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, and the world’s richest man, is known for changing how the world operates and functions. The mission of his non-profit, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is to give all people the chance to live a healthy and productive life. To this end, during the mid-1990s, Bill Gates gave computers to libraries and schools, which made sense for the world’s largest software owner. But how did Bill Gates becomes interested in poop? Yes…human excrement. His philanthropic organization granted money to Janicki Bioenergy to build the OmniProcessor, a machine which transforms fecal sludge and solid waste into water and electricity. In places without treatment plants or clean water, the technology could be a low-cost solution to quench the world’s thirst.

 

Bill Gates explains the process in this video.

References

American Chemical Society. “Converting Sewage Into Drinking Water: Wave Of The Future?” ScienceDaily, 30 January 2008. Source: TechStreet

American Water Works Association. Security Practices for Operation and Management. AWWA G430-14 November 1, 2014

Bill Gates’ latest passion: a machine that turns poop into water by Todd Wasserman. Mashable, January 6, 2015

Bill Gates 2.0 by 60 Minutes. CBS News, May 14, 2013

Career Opportunities at Janicki Bioenergy

U.S. Enviornmental Protection Agency. Current Drinking Water Regulations

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Drinking Water Contaminants