First place went to the California Institute of Technology for designing a solar-powered toilet that generates hydrogen gas and electricity.

Loughborough University came in second for a toilet that transforms waste into biological charcoal, minerals, and clean water.

Third place went to the University of Toronto for a toilet that sanitises human waste and recovers minerals and water.

Gates said approximately 2.5 billion people worldwide do not have access to safe sanitation systems and this contributes to severe health problems.

"Beyond a question of human dignity, this lack of access also endangers people's lives, creates an economic and a health burden for poor communities, and hurts the environment," Gates said.

Food or water tainted with faecal matter causes intestinal diseases that kill 1.5 million children annually - a figure higher than deaths from AIDS and malaria combined, according to Gates.

"Inventing new toilets is one of the most important things we can do to reduce child deaths and disease and improve people's lives," Gates said.

"It is also something that can help wealthier countries conserve fresh water for other important purposes besides flushing."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-15/bill-gates-on-quest-to-reinvent-the-toilet/4199962?WT.svl=news5

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Having spent time in Africa in the 1960s where the toilet was a hole in the laterite and toilet paper was either a sun-dried brick of a banana leaf stalk, I know this problem rather well...

Correspondent Adam Yamaguchi investigates one of the world's biggest public health crises: the 2.6 billion people living without toilets. Modern plumbing has not caught up to the exploding population in India, where the Yamuna River runs black with sewage and bubbles with methane gas. In Indonesia, a toilet evangelist spreads the good word about sanitation to both consumers and entrepreneurs, hoping to create a market for affordable commodes in developing countries. Without sanitary methods for disposing of waste, approximately 40 per cent of the global population is subjected to an ongoing pandemic of intestinal afflictions that kill two million people a year.

http://www.smh.com.au/tv/Current-Affairs/Worlds-Toilet-Crisis-4281702.html

India's supreme court has ordered that schools nationwide must be provided with toilets and drinking water within six months.

Research in India shows that wherever toilet facilities are inadequate, parents are reluctant to send their children to school - especially if they are girls.

The activist group, Right to Education Forum, says 40 per cent of schools in India do not have toilets.

The supreme court says having the basic facilities are part of a child's right to an education.

The judgement says a lack of toilets and drinking water "clearly violates the right to free and compulsory education of children".

The top court was acting on a petition filed in 2004 by a charity organisation, but that had still not been implemented despite several rulings.

State and privately run schools in the country now have six months to ensure students have access to toilets and drinking water.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-07/indian-court-puts-deadline-on-toilets-in-schools/4299556

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This story is close to my heart — well at least some of my misspent life...... When I was in Africa one of my jobs was to run a school with basically no money... One of the problem of course were the dunnies. We had a row of them, strangely enough, but we had no staff to clean them and I can tell you this was a major problemo... I mean bricks, banana leaves and palm stalks were used as toilet paper and the damned things got clogged up every single day... Thus I had to run a roster between director, teachers and students to clean the toilets daily... though it was the ultimate "punisment" for bad behaviour, bad behaviour basically never happened in that school because... you guessed it...

Of all those who refused (not for long) were the "indians"  from the "upper class" (sons of merchants, etc, though the classes were mixed with female students, that's equality for you — the girls' dunnies were spotless)... The chinese and the locals  and even myself got on our knees into the cubicles removing the blockages when they appeared.. Thus I know shit and bricks when I see it...

And there we are 50 years later, talking about dunnies (toilets) in indian schools... Brings tears to my eyes that made it into the twenty-first century...

See toon at top...