Bill Gates is helping India win its war on human waste

pulse

May 8, 2017 6:32 PM

Of the world's 1.7 million people living without clean water, more than 600,000 are from India. Bill Gates is helping the country turn that around.

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October, 2, 2019 is an important date for India's government.

Coinciding with the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's birth, it marks the proposed finish line for "Clean India," the country's ambitious plan to install 75 million toilets around the country.

Right now, 600,000 of the world's 1.7 million who die annually from unsafe water and sanitation (due primarily to open, unclean toilets) live in India. As billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates recently wrote on his blog, those kinds of conditions make a plan like Clean India worthy of both praise and financial support.

Over the past several years, has donated millions in aid and grant money to both federal governments and private companies. Some of those donations were used to created high-tech toilets for use in low-income countries.

In 2012, the Gates Foundation issued a challenge to design a revolutionary toilet that was safe, sustainable, and affordable. The four winning designs were awarded grants totaling $3.4 million, with the expectation that they could help transform underserved areas.

The largest grant, for $1.3 million, went to RTI for its Integrated Waste Treatment System. The toilets

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