The exhibit is an eye-opening look into a subject many would rather leave to someone else to worry about. Doulaye Kone is that guy.A sanitation ...
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network
A sanitation expert who joined the foundation in 2011, Kone is the head of the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene team at the foundation, where he leads efforts to create access to safe sanitation for the 3.5 billion people who currently live without it. The foundation has spent $1.4 billion on those efforts since 2005.
Doulaye Kone shows off the various ways people go to the bathroom in different parts of the world. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)
Kone said the focus on sanitation fits with the overall mission of the Gates Foundation: improving health and avoiding child mortality.
The foundation is also known for its advocacy and work on vaccines, some of which are for diseases transmitted through contact with human waste.
Cleaner sanitation systems could potentially help prevent the need for vaccines in the first place, Kone said.
“Can the toilet be a ‘super vaccine’?” he said, during a GeekWire tour of the exhibit this week.
It’s a question he and the foundation and its global partners are desperate to find an answer for.
And while providing toilets and sanitation for underdeveloped communities is part of the solution, dealing with the aging infrastructure that the rest of the world relies on is also a concern, especially as systems will be tested by climate change.
“A Better Way to Go” starts with the biology of poop — and some rather realistic wood carvings of different types of stool. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)
“A Better Way to Go” walks through seven themes aimed at ultimately sharing the foundation’s vision for “resilient and sustainable sanitation.” Those themes illustrate:
Biology of going: the science of human waste.
How we go: how people go to the bathroom around the world.
Where it goes: exploring sewered and un-sewered methods for dealing with waste.
When it goes wrong: the challenges of unsafe waste handling and untreated sewage.
No place to go: why a scarcity of toilets in some regions is a problem for women and girls.
Better ways to go: reinvented toilets and crucial partnerships.
Sanitation futures: a garden-like space featuring biosolid compost “poopariums.”
A number of interactive displays engage visitors throughout the exhibit, to break down the taboo of poo, if you will. There’s a word cloud full of different names for poop in different languages; a display of different (fake) poop styles to get people thinking about how their own biology starts the sanitation cycle; previously released videos of Bill Gates drinking waste water turned into clean drinking water; light-up graphics/maps that show where and how sanitation systems can fail; and a small box you can stick your nose in to see how a specially designed scent can cheaply tackle a big, stinky, latrine problem
SOURCE:https://www.geekwire.com/2024/gates-foundations-toilet-and-sanitation-exhibit-in-seattle-is-flush-with-education-and-innovation/
Media
Taxonomy
- Composting Toilet
- Portable Toilets & Waste Management
- Toilet To Tap