Okay, I admit that sounds really strange, but not as strange as you may think. In 2013 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded a proof-of-concept project; the Omni Processor – prototype built by Washington-based Janicki Bioenergy.
Bill Gates caused a stir in late 2014 when he posted a two-minute clip on YouTube about the Omni Processor which showed him drinking a glass of water that has been a load of human faeces just minutes before. “I watched the piles of faeces 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.”
[Source: Gatesnotes]
Would You Drink Your Poop?
The Omni Processor was originally designed to take in sewer sludge and output primarily electrical power, but during the development it was discovered that it would be more economically viable to use the processor to make clean drinking water and a water treatment system was then added.
Omni Processor – Model S100 can process around 10,800 litres of clean drinking water and 100 kilowatts of electricity per day, and the water satisfies all the World Health Organisation (WHO) clean water requirements. The bigger S200 model “is designed to handle the waste from 100,000 people; produce 86,000 litres of drinking water per day and 250 kW net output electricity.†[Source: Wikipedia]
The Model S100 was shipped to Dakar, Senegal in mid-February 2015, where continued development and real-world performance measuring will take place to ensure that it works well in all locations, including Africa, where it is hoped that it will make a huge difference to millions of inhabitants of water-scarce countries where there are thousands of deaths every year due to a lack of water and bad sanitation.
You may not want to drink water reclaimed from faeces, even if it has been treated; the thought makes most people a bit squeamish, but I can guarantee you that the people in those countries where water is a luxury will not care where it comes from; all they will care about is that it will dramatically improve their lives.
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