Reinvent the Toilet Challenge

A project in cooperation with EOOS and Makerere University in Uganda, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The Competition

In 2011 the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation initiated and funded the competition
‘Reinvent-the-Toilet-Challenge’ (RTTC) in which eight universities with promising entries had to proof their concepts.

Eawag, in collaboration with the Austrian Design Studio EOOS, convinced with their sanitation system "Diversion for safe sanitation" and won an "award for outstanding design of a toilet user interface" at the RTTC Fair in Seattle, August 2012.

We are continuing our work in the next phase of the "Reinvent the Toilet Challenge" (November 2012 - February 2014) funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Soon we will start our first toilet design field test in Uganda.

The Challenge

The target is to develop a mass-produced sanitation system operating grid-free (not connected to electricity grid, piped water, or sewer) with total costs not exceeding 5 US cents per person and day. High user comfort and total resource recovery are also key requirements.

Video: Reinvent the Toilet (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)

Almost 2.6 billion people worldwide use unsafe toilets or defecate in the open. Poor sanitation causes severe diarrhoea, which kills 1.8 million people each year. With the urbanisation of poverty in the coming decades, this problem is especially daunting in dense urban settlements especially affecting the urban poor.

Video: No place to go (RUWASS-GIZ; ETH, Makerere University and Eawag)