"Toilet 2.0" Project

During APPLE Steve Job is launching his new Operation System X Lion, the biggest competitor Mircosoft Bill Gates is seeking to change the lives of over 2.6 billion people in Africa, this time with a toilet concept – “Toilet 2.0.”

You know, UNICEF estimates that 1.1 billion people worldwide don't have access to any kind of toilet or ways of eliminating waste. That, in turn, fouls drinking wate and can cause diarrhea, which spreads quickly. Unfortunately, there are around 1.5 millions childrens die with there infections each year.

“‘Toilet 2.0’ – that’s right, innovations in sanitation have a big, positive impact for billions without access,” Gates said

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which works to help people lead healthy, productive lives, announced on Tuesday their initiative to help bring safe, clean sanitation services to millions of people in the developing world who don’t have access to safe, reliable toilets.

“No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet,” Sylvia Matthews Burwell, president of the foundation’s Global Development Program, stated at a sanitation and hygiene conference in Africa.

Brave New Toilet?

Unfortunately, the tried-and-true water closet of developed countries like Africa is too wasteful for poorer regions with limited sources of water. The Gates Foundation's Water, Sanitation & Hygiene department is working on two alternatives.

One low-tech solution supports the building of pit latrines in toilet-free areas. A second project gives grants to scientists who come with creative ways to dispose of wastes.
Some clever ideas for the "ultimate toilet" include:

• Create dry toilets that don't use water to flush, and which separate Number #2 from Number #1 to dry the solids
• Using bacteria to turn waste into compost
• Build toilets that turn urine into drinking water
• Use human urine to make nitrogenous fertilizer in powder form

Let's see how The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation use the different social media to deliver this productive concept and lead a effective fund-rising campaign.

Youtube

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/#!/billmelindagatesfoundation?sk=app_207976986934

Twitter

http://twitter.com/#!/gatesfoundation

Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gatesfoundation/5957759943/in/photostream/



Blog

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/foundationnotes/Pages/frank-rijsberman-reinvent-the-toilet.aspx

Bill Gates has turned his attention to a very unglamorous and taboo, but critical aspect of human life- the toilet and is looking to give it a much-needed technological uplift. Why not? When everything around us is becoming smarter and multi-functional, why not the toilet?

Ryan Leung

Turning Waste into GOLD!!!!!!

Have you ever imagined that you can make use of the waste to produce something? 

The video demonstrated how five million units of electronic waste being disposed of annually is simultaneously giving away HK$600 million worth of precious metals if it was all recycled in a sustainable manner. The Environment Bureau should be blamed for losing hold of the responsibility of appropriate e-waste treatment, letting exporters do the dirty job, as well as the loss of huge potential business opportunities arising from extracting precious metals such as gold, silver, copper, all going down the drain for years! 

Why not making use of the waste, and turn them to gold!

The leading recycler, Multiresource Technology Inc introduced their best practice of recycling electronic waste and the “turn waste to gold” facilities and processing lines. It was revealed that recycling 20,000 computer units can produce 1kg of gold, 1.5 kgs of pure silver and 3,500 kgs of copper. One kilogram of gold is worth HK$0.28 million at current market rates, and the value of gold alone that the company gained through recycling amounted to over HK$100 million a year, showing the value in electronic waste. 

 

This maybe be time intensive, it is not an easy task to convince people to recycle their waste, especially computers. Computers are quite heavy and is difficult for people to carry their own computers to the recycle station for recycle. The benefits of social media may not work out when people do not have any interest in the product or service. In this case, it is not successful as most of the people tend not to care much about the waste, where will they go after throwing them away, or what will they be after the recycling process. 

Sally Wong ^ ^