[mikorym]

I come from a country with serious sewage issues. Most of it is government operated sewage works that are just not maintained and were due for upgrade 10-20 years ago. The issue is also an order of magnitude worse in some areas than in others.

The Gates Foundation is not relevant here, in that problem field, in any meaningful way. It is an issue about operational structure and unit cost structure. Tax money gets spent on black Mercedes cars instead of what it is supposed to be spent on.

Also, it is not a technological issue at all. In terms of tech for sewage treatment, the path forward is clear. In terms of politics it is not.

[ranDOMscripts]

It is my (albeit limited) understanding that the Gates grants are focused on providing toilets to areas where there previously were none and not on replacing crumbling infrastructure. They're trying to get facilities to the millions of people who have to poop in the bushes because that's all there is.

[mikorym]

That's not the issue. The issue is that there are sewage systems that dump raw sewage into rivers. Toilets are more of a nod to human decency than environmental issues.

But if Bill would like to phone me, then I would explain to him that while decency does score high in my books, you can have perfect golden toilets that dump sewage into rivers. In that case I would rather take a veldtie in the bushes.