3 Groundbreaking New Toilets
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- Опубліковано 24 лип 2024
- Visit www.gatesnotes.com to learn more about the safe sanitation problem and strategies that can help.
Most of the time you probably don’t have to think too much about your toilet, but billions of people don’t have access to safe sanitation. So, engineers are working on new kinds of toilets that could help solve that!
Hosted by: Stefan Chin
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Sources:
Sanitation:
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/env...
www.who.int/news-room/fact-she...
Caltech:
www.fastcompany.com/3047460/t...
www.caltech.edu/news/winning-...
• Self-Contained, PV-Pow...
Terra Preta:
sswm.info/water-nutrient-cycl...
sswm.info/water-nutrient-cycl...
www.researchgate.net/publicat...
www.researchgate.net/publicat...
www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/3/13...
iwaponline.com/wst/article/67...
U of T:
www.utoronto.ca/news/u-t-engi...
thewalrus.ca/the-toilet-papers/
www.utoronto.ca/news/world-to...
player.vimeo.com/video/47309197
Images:
www.flickr.com/photos/gtzecos...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Visit www.gatesnotes.com to learn more about the safe sanitation problem and strategies that can help.
Can you guys do show on science behind relatively lower mortality rates for women giving birth at home vs giving births in a hospital. It’s sounds very counter intuitive but it’s true!
@@carlosvides5397 I second this!
Edit: also, you gained credit at 3:49, then lost it at 3:55.😆
Not true!
...in case you're wondering how I'm qualified to comment I happen to be a doctor!
Oo, oo, I have an idea... How about an earth closest?
Bill Gates sponsored this?! Awesome!
About the last toilet; what about if you have diarrhea?!
A gross but realistically good question.
I'm pretty sure the purpose of the conveyor belt is to dry it out before it gets to the fire, probably using heat from the fire.. Even normal poop don't burn without drying.
What confuses me about the last one is incinerator toilets are actually already being used in RVs, and have been for a while, and it can handle any type of feces or urine, and doesn't have a conveyor belt.
@@ieatthebooty2494
This works differently than incineration toilets. Those burn fuel to burn up the waste. This toilet dries and then directly burns the waste very slowly. It doesn't use fuel/energy to incinerate the waste.
@@lordgarion514 well they don't all require fuel anymore, power yes, but not actual fuel. Can be ran from a solar panel
To be honest I laughed when I saw the title. But, this is a very good topic, as many people need proper sanitation.
Can never get enough science about poop. Thanks SciShow! 😇
normally Hank does all the poop stuff, maybe he's sick
Praise The Lord
JEEZ!!
How are you verified? Such heresy!
Jesus Christ Hey there JC. How’s it hangin? Don’t know if you read these. But keep up the good work. Your dad would be proud.
On an altruistic note, there’s a UA-camr named AJ Pickett who has a channel that makes lore and ecology videos for D&D. Real nice dude, incredibly helpful and an overall cool guy. I’m not sure if you’ve done a video on D&D and and what the Bible says about it before, but I think it would be cool to hear your opinion on the topic given the past controversy between The Church and D&D and it would be awesome if you could give AJ Pickett’s The Mighty Gluestick a shout out in it, assuming you even decide to make a video at all. He’s incredibly helpful to the online D&D community and I can’t think of a person I know who would be more deserving of some free promotion from Our Lord and Savior than him. He doesn’t know I’m doing this and isn’t asking you for this himself. I’m just suggesting that you do it out of the benevolence of your heart. Spreading goodwill amongst humanity is kinda your thing. Anywho, hope all’s well on your side of the screen. Peace Homie. ✌️
Fun fact about that Terra Preta, there have been recent discoveries in the Amazon due to deforestation, of sites of geoglyphs, mounds, and causeways. These plus the terra preta, and pottery, have shown there may have been an agrarian society in the Amazon.
A large part of the Amazon basin was heavily populated up till the Portuguese and Spanish colonisers going there and taking their European diseases with them, that the indigenous people had no resistance to. Some reported that there were large cities on the banks of the various rivers. Guess we are now finding them.
I read somewhere (can probably find a source?) that a lot of the jungle in the Amazon was actually planted by a civilization that supposedly worshiped the kind of trees growing there now. I think that's a super interesting idea, the vast jungles of the Amazon that really influences global climate and holds such deep diversity was a gift from our ancestors, that keeps on giving today.
@@johnmccallum8512 European diseases had a decades-long party until the human population in the New World was decimated. Then they were sad, and probably all died.
@@98Zai that's sounds pretty unreallistic. Changing the climate by destroying the environment is pretty easy with today's technology. Planting the world's largest forest, even today, sounds pretty impossible.
@@sohopedeco Well, it's hard to prove with 100% reliability. But millions of people lived there over many tens of thousands of years. And trees do propagate themselves too. www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pristine-untouched-amazonian-rainforest-was-actually-shaped-humans-180962378/
Yes, id like to learn more about toilets rather than studying . Thank you scishow :)
#3 _"The conveyor belt's stuck"_
"Yeah, I ain't touching that."
_"Hole in the ground?"_
"Hole in the ground."
Exactly, and it probably costs twice, or more what a regular composting toilet costs. Less than a grand even in high price America. They're so simple they could make them in the poor countries that really need them for probably 20 bucks US. And in a decade when it breaks it can be recycled(eww, but whatever). And useful fertilizer for free.
Folks are way over-thinking things. High tech is not always best.
India?
@@lordgarion514 you do realize composting requires bacteria sawdust and a relative level of humidity right ? now try to make that work in somalia and see how that goes.
What is wrong with the shovel method? Dig hole, poop, fill hole, dig new hole.
@@davidbeppler3032 Water gets to the poop in the hole, microbes get to slide down to the water table, congratulations! You've just infected your whole community with dysentery.
What!?!?!? A video about poop without Hank?!?!? SACRILEGE!!!!!
I like fertilizer toilet. Cant imagine having too much fertilizer. Just spread in a field somewhere
tracey adkins yea right most societies are reliant on agriculture. I guess it’s more complicated then that though
A lot of farmers don't want to use human waste as fertilizer because they're afraid it will carry disease. It's a fear without basis but it can make it hard to get rid of the fertilizer.
Grimm yeah but schools teach people not to be afraid of silly things
Oh. But they spread processed sewage sludge (biosolids) in fields here in Ohio, USA. DISGUSTING. scary too. Nobody dead yet. Lol. I would run through another animal if worried. Chicken pasture anyone?
Ever heard of algae blooms, fertilisers can be very damaging to the environment when they deep into rivers
My diet of pure protein powder would mess these up REAL quick.
Pure something 🙄
Hahahahahhaha
Yikes I’ll bet the plants would grow muscles with fertilizer like that
It probably doesn't help that I haven't drank water since 2004.
Not as fast as it will mess up kidneys.
Wait hold up. This episode was brought to you by Bill Gates? I'm more interested in the details of that
He's really shedding his riches for the betterment of the planet. Say what you will about Microsoft, but Bill is probably one of the best Americans out there. (especially compared to his peer, and friend, the late Steve Jobs)
@@98Zai
Yep, and when he first set up his Foundation with 25 billion of his money, that was more than every other billionaire in the world combined had given to charity. He started a trend, and I think he's even been passed by Buffett now.
And when he and his wife dies all the money in the charity and all their personal wealth has to be completely spent on charity in 15 years(I'm pretty sure).
Yeah, Bill Gates does a lot of developing world stuff.
I think he also made a video on toilets a while back
Click on the link in the doobly - doo
I think there have been sponsorships by something like The Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation before, with similar kinds of world infrastructure improvement topics. But this is the first time I remember hearing a sponsorship by just plain Bill Gates.
Honestly, these all seem very costly, inefficient, and maintenance heavy for the individual. You know, in three months it's busted. Might as well just dig an outhouse and throw a bunch of dead leaves in it because that'll get the same composting result. Actual sanitation requires public works in often corrupt nations with misplaced priorites.
Yeah I agree. I'm pretty out of touch but in third world countries I imagine they're shitting in ditches or maybe wherever is convenient depending on how bad things are... I think we should start simple to reach the most people we can while keeping matienance at a minimum
Yeah. They'd make better communal toilets (something you do need!) than individual ones. Even then I'd lean heavily towards the second for its mechanical simplicity.
At the very least, there is a HUGE need to be separating liquid & solids from those holes in the ground! Urine's already pretty sterile & easy to handle. If it can be removed from those pits so only solid matter is entering them, the chance they leak into water tables is massively reduced.
This isn't just for third world though, we need a toilet revolution in first world countries as water resourses deplete too!
I know. Compost toilets make a lot more sense.
digging a hole to bury your poop might make sense for small communities in rural settings but unfortunately the global sanitation problem extends to large populations living in pretty big towns and cities too. a lot of poor countries have large urban poor populations and that kind of solution just isnt practical at those population densities, there has to be some processing of the waste.
Thanks Bill!!!
Blue screen of death now available in your high tech and maintenance intensive toilet. ;)
thanks bill, very cool
If Terra Preta is as good of a fertilizer as you say, I would think they have a sellers' market. It would be wonderful if a percentage of the Terra Preta purchased was donated to reestablish denuded lands. You hear so much about deforestation - it sounds like Terra Preta could help regrow the land.
Africa certainly could use some help with desertification. It wouldn't be the entire solution, but it might be able to turn the sand into soil.
I don't see the "too much Terra Preta" as a problem. Since this seems to be a topic of interest to Bill Gates, perhaps he could direct some if his considerable assets toward ways to redistribute all that valuable fertilizer.
This was filled with information about something I NEVER think about...and I am VERY glad I don't have to worry about it!
But the fertilizer method could also be used as a way to provide an income, the fertilizer could be purchased!! then it would hep not only the sanitation problem but also help the poverty problem! Also it could help with reforestation efforts and provide many areas with being able to have fresh food.
I thought this was just going to be a load of crap
Thankfully it wasn’t much of a pooper, but rather a real solid video.
No crap? I did too, but then it was just a lot of hot air.
@@SimonWoodburyForget, tell me about it. Like the world needs more complicated toilets. Some of these ideas were terrible. It's like the kind of crap you come up with to pass a class that you can't stand.
Great show just before thanksgiving. wonderful!
I bought a composting toilet it's amazingly how quickly it works, providing temperature and humidity are maintained in a specific range.
Lived in a community that had an expert on composting toilets... Was totally amazing how it worked and was so easy and sanitary. No moving parts, no technology, just a system of proper mixture, how to maintain which was simple and easy, and an obsession with worm farms and planting with good composted soil.
We have been using a composting toilet for 6 years and it works great! It works like the terra preta toilet.
I have been putting diatomaceous earth in the solids tank to cut down on flies. I’ll try adding charcoal to cut the little smell down to zero!
Thanks guys!!
I'd love to see the planning meeting for this one. "Okay, Stefan. We need you to animate a poop conveyor belt that flattens the poop and drops it into a hole where it catches on fire."
Thanks Bill, very cool!
Ima try charred wood panels for the bottom of my kitty's litter box. Thanks for another great idea SciShow!
There must be some way to create fuel from the #3 dried poop pellets, right? I suppose it wouldn't be as simple, but you would have a steady supply of energy that might help counteract the up front cost.
it is a truly kind and giving person that has to have their name mentioned ad nauseum so we all know it was him doing this thing for the world
the school my daughters go to have what they call "dry toilets". It's very simple, basically a pierced chair. Once you're done, you sprinkle a bunch wood shavings on top (get rids of the smell surprisingly efficiently) and the farmer that lives close by collect the buckets twice a week and fertilize his crops with it. (yea, it's kind of a neo-hippy school ^^)
"How do we allow poor, 3rd world countries have better sewage sanitation?"
*unrolls blueprint for extremely expensive, over-complicated toilet*
They still haven't learned not to poop in their drinking water, so let's send them some extremely expensive , hard to operate equipment. What could go wrong?
"i live in a 1st world country and have no idea why people in other places can't live the way i do"
A bunch of toilets like these in a public bathroom would replace a whole town's sewage system + water treatment plants, which if you don't know, tend to be very expensive and a lot more complicated than poop on a treadmill.
I assume you're talking about countries that are even worse than 3rd world countries, because here in South America we are fine.
Yeah these are all overcomplicated with far too many moving parts. These are intended for heavy use in rural areas. But the final product is about as durable as a faberge egg.
SciShow always answering the REAL questions
thank you Mr. Gates very cool
I just need a toilet that doesn't need plunging every time somebody poops!!
1:37 maybe it was all the bathroom lingo getting to me, but I heard "urinating crops" the first time I listened to that instead of "irrigating crops." Had to rewind & double check what I heard because I was getting ready to Google "urinating crops" and that just sounds like a part of the internet I would rather not venture into.
The waste disposal end is the most important if you think about cholera, for example. The Earrthship approach to water and sanitation seems to make more sense than either of these options.
4:39 goldilocks has some, shall we say, peculiar interests.
Goldilocks may in fact be coprophilic! ;-)
She's German
Thanks Bill!
What happened to just using a good old-fashioned out house?
Dig a hole, build a small room over it for privacy then toss a scoop of charcoal in after you go. The liquids seep down into the soil, filtered by the time it reaches ground water. The solids will decay, though presumably not as fast as they add up, so once it gets close to the top, fill it in, dig a new hole and relocate the structure. Have a bunch of these in a circle so that by the time you get back around, the first hole will have composted, dried out and can be dug out again; only this time the dirt is great for growing food.
I wonder if the terra preta could be used for re-foresting efforts. Or to curb desertification...
Imagine some futuristic toilets breaking the ground...
My grand-grand parents had a perfect system. Dig a deep hole in the ground. Place an outhouse on top of it.... Toilet! (and you can use the waste as fertilizer as well.)
Thanks Bill.
A lot of people in my area use composting toilets. they are fairly common.
Isn't the first method literally something that been around for like a century? I remember seeing something like it, specially for american houses away from proper sewage, and the process was simpler as well, waster was just collected in a septic tank and then slurry would spread out through a large portion of terrain, and gas would vent to the atmosphere, possibly being capture for more use. I've also had already seen that thing about Terra Preta, and seems to me like the simpler of methods, coming back to those oldie ages outside toilets with septic tank beneath.
Super cool!
The traditional oldie one seems to be the best. It's waste in - soil out, and we need soil in agriculture, like, really need fertile soil. Although I don't understand how you keep your toilet area clean and separated from all the smells and fecal bacteria.
"Groundbreaking" is the last quality I would look for in the purchase of a new toilet.
“Maybe there’s a nice middle ground for Goldilocks to poop in.”
You really need to find a way to work this into every scishow episode from now on, completely without context. That would be amazing.
The tera preta method seems pretty cool
Wouldn't the terra preta toilet work well in areas where slash-and-burn agriculture is used, so one doesn't *need* to slash and burn? That way, people could use dedicated fields and even have arboriculture mixed in or at the edges to reduce habitat destruction.
they do realize that there is a gradient of solid to liquid, right?
Yeah but there isn’t a gradient of pee to poo.
@ no, but none of these toilets have shown how they would handle diarrhea...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_stool_scale
New life hack:
No toilet? Use your pants.
Damn, this is REVOLUTIONARY
No paper? Use your hands.
@@chpdip94
Hands, soap, and water. I used to do that. But US restrooms don't have drainage systems on the floor. That is just sad.
I thought of that when I was 2 days old. Everyone thought I was crazy.
@@chpdip94 Okay, stay with me... Paper pants. Your pockets are sanitation wipes.
I know this isn’t the point, but it made me happy when you said “Toronno” the first time 🙃
I mean, you went back to the wrong pronunciation after, but it still made me happy
What if we take the Terra preta and sprinkle it around the Sahara. Plenty of space there, and maybe it can help dedesertify the region?
I cannot see what is wrong with a standard batching Composting toilet, I had had one for years and apart from a couple of optional 5watt solar fans it needs no input other than carbon to balance the nitrogen input, and that can come from many sources.
Too much fertiliser seems like a weird problem to have XD
What gets done with the ash from the third toilet?
please don't poop in the pee tank. thank you!
"Maybe there's a nice middleground for Goldilocks to poop in."
😂
So you talked about the Toronto toilet and seemed pretty swell, but what would happen if poop was just or almost a liquid as pee...
Finally! i've been waiting for so long for my sh*t to be interesting!
What happened to using outhouses? Seems like a time tested method.
I've heard burying leavings in a trench (that you can cover as you fill it) makes for good fertilized soil.
over time they get full... and then you have to dig another one. Eventually you run out of space especially in crowded urban areas. Plus the hole has to be very deep and far from drinking water sources. Space often just isn't sufficient to meet all those requirements, over and over again as they fill up.
2:20 Forgot to mention that tropical soil is poor in nutrition... which is why the Amazon turns to desert when we cut down the trees.
But can you use this soil on plants for human consumption? Normally you don't want to use 'human waste' on plants you later eat...
Why don't they combine the terra petta and the converter belt toilet together? That way they can also get rid of the over produced fertilizer.
And what about green sanitation on regular toilets, like less use of water or better use of the poop and waste.
One toilet burns the solid waste, potentially a lot of smoke in a community, even one toilet for several households. Another uses charcoal the making of which can lead to further deforestation, also a lot of air pollution depending on the process. Whatever happened to septic tanks? They can go years with either no maintenance or with occasional pump outs -- the CalTech toilet without recycling the effluent. I lived as a child in a neighborhood where every house had one and the lots where only 50-60ft (15-18m) wide, and ground water was very high due to surrounding bayous.
This is how to tell your bored, when your watching videos of toilets lol.
What would be the problem with making too much fertiliser?
"oh no! Our farm won't just feed my family it might feed the whole village!"
Thanks bill
These toilers work under normal conditions. i.e assuming you're only doing nrº 1 or 2... but what if someone has diarrhea or throws up in the toilet? How is it going to process it then? Also, what if some wise guy or a drunk uses it and ends up dumping the wrong waste into the wrong channel (like that second toilet)?
Use the ash from Toronto in the Terra Preta process!
Bill Bill Bill Bill... wait... I think I have someone stuck in my head. meh. BILL WOOOO!
To boldly go where no one has gone before.
*how no one has gone before XD
*To bodily go where no one has gone before.
The Destroylet. I'd buy it.
The most groundbreaking toilet I've ever used was the one I dug next to a bush.
My 9yo son came up with the idea of using the poop itself as an energy source. He said when he grows up he wants to invent a device that will convert the poo directly into energy through fusion, he calls it the "Poosion" reactor.
Why not use just simple dry toilets ? I wasn't a fan at the beginning but sawdust proves to be surprisingly efficient at capturing bad smell and you can use the collecting bag as fertilizer once it's full. Moreover, no technology required. Since you change the bag regularly enough, no big deal with bacteria either.
Mmmmm... there's nothing like the smell of burning poop in the morning
Got an image of Bob Duvall squatting over a barbecue,
yellow 'kerchief covering his nose.
Thanks.
*Fan dried burning poop
The first design is the official enermy of every falling watch.
Liquidie Left-Overs? I think I have some in the back of my fridge.
Grats on being noticed by the Gates people
what do you do with the ash?
"This episode was brought to you by Bill Gates."
Excuse me?! I can't believe he reached out to you guys to make this video on sanitation. Amazing.
whats so bad about accumulated fertilizer? cant they sell it or use it?
With the news being what it is, I seriously assumed this would be a list of things like Matthew Whitaker's "masculine toilet".
I have an exam coming up but I know I have to watch this.
I know it sounds like a good to convert body waste into fertilizer, but it is possible that the fertilizer would carry diseases. Also, I for one find it to be shocking that it is possible for there to be parasite eggs in liquid body waste.
What does 3x more fertile soil mean? How do you measure that?
You stick a fertilimeter in it.
What about the toilet paper and fresh wipes?
Maybe the ash and water used from the Toronto toilet could be used for agriculture as well, without the NEED to use all of the ash.
Whats wrong with the old outhouse
Things won't just disappear. It will contaminate ground water. Not an issue if you only have one in a large area. But these plans are for large somewhat densely populated areas.
@@patrickmccurry1563
An outhouse works just like a septic system. It just doesn't have the lines leading away from it to speed up the process, and not enough water to make it seep very well, so it fills up. Then a new one needs to be dug. After the second one fills, the first one is composted and can be dug up and spread on a field. Repeat with the second hole.
There are charities helping build just this system with a portable building.
Works fine in low densities. When Scaled up you have problems like england had which led to the great stink. In high density areas toilets which deposited all waste directly in the ground would start seeping into ground water, contaminating it with bacteria. Even when the waste actually had time to dry out and build up as night soil it was still a terribly stinky unsafe bacteria ridden substance which would be dumped illegally. Not to mention cases of death when toilet cisterns would collapse, or nightsoilmen would fall in and die. Maybe even the floor would rot above due to gasses, moisture, heat and stuff and the user would fall in and drown.
Simple mechanical composting toilets made of cheap long lasting materials, with urine diversion and some small additional materiel for drying is ideal in low density areas, small families etc where the tank can be slowly filled over a few months then left to sit and mascerate a few months more before being emptied.
Its probably not idea to use directly for food crops, but forestry, landcaping and rejuvination projects (repairing sites damaged by overfarming etc) can be in need of fertiliser too.
Dry composting toilets are the way to go.
What about the other old toilet design that uses sawdust instead of charcoal?
Do you guys have your info in book form?_?
I do most of my fantasy reading on the toilet lol
Terra preta means " black dirt/earth". Charcoal is some wondrous sh1t, not just for drawing anymore. Thanks for that, now I know what to do when the zombie apocalypse comes.
Groundbreaking toilet: One that fracks when it flushes.
The Terra Toilet is the best option. If your village doesn't need the fertilizer, ship the stuff to another town and get something nice in return. Trade is the #1 way to promote co-existence and prosperity.
Who needs toilets when you've got freshwater streams and irrigation basins
We need a perfectly frictionless surface so that we can do-away with water for flushing.
Imagine going to the toilet minding your own business and suddenly the hidrogen tank malfunctioned the battery explodes and your house catch fire
It was a Bad Idea trying to eat my Dinner while watching this XD