Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Reinvent the Toilet Challenge (5 page Letter of Inquiry)

To prototype a means of dealing effectively and cost-efficiently with human waste for the 2.5 billion people on earth who currently lack access to safe and affordable sanitation: Prototyping and testing entirely stand-alone, self-contained, practical sanitation modules which intake bodily wastes or fecal sludge collected from pit latrines and septic tanks and swiftly dispose of them without any incoming water piping, outgoing sewer piping or electric or gas utility services. These modules must intake all outputs of the serviced population – ultimately at single-residence scales (smaller-scale individual family toilet solutions) or group of households (larger-scale neighborhood fecal sludge processor solutions)– with minimal module footprints and assured biosafety. The anticipated capital and operational cost for the final products is expected to be less than $0.05/user/day, both for the family and neighborhood solutions. Funding: up to $1 million. The foundation will fund 5-10 proposals.
www.gatesfoundation.org/watersanitationhygiene/Pages/loi-round3-reinvent-toilet-challenge.aspx