The billionaire philanthropist tastes the product of a machine that processes human sewage into drinking water and electricity.
In his quest to help save the planet, Bill Gates has literally tasted the next evolution in waste water technology: drinking water recycled from human waste.
Bill Gates has backed a new hi-tech water plant than could bring clean water to Africa and has even drunk it.
The Microsoft founder has backed a Seattle firm’s radical machine that uses a combination of steam and filters to convert human waste into water the firm says it indistinguishable from bottled water.
‘It tastes as good as anything I’ve drunk out of a bottle,’ he said.
‘And having studied the engineering behind it, I would happily drink it every day. It’s that safe.’
Each roughly $1.5-million plant can process sewage for a community of about 100,000 people, the firm behind it says.
The machine runs at such a high temperature (1000 degrees Celsius) that there’s no nasty smell; in fact it meets all the emissions standards set by the U.S. government.
Bill Gates now spends the majority of his time on philanthropic endeavors through education, entrepreneurship, improved sanitation and access to drinking water in both developing and under developed countries.