There are 2.6 billion people worldwide who lack toilets to do their dirty business in. An innovative social service group based in India plans to solve this problem with its toilet that can recycle human waste into fertilizer and biogas. By 2025, Sulabh International Social Service Organization aims to provide everyone on earth with access to a proper toilet.

The problem is rampant in densely populated countries like India and China, where more than half of the people living without toilets reside. People are reduced to carrying these waste materials on their heads to get them away from their living quarters. They deposit this waste in places that are not equipped to deal with it, such as city dumps, canals and nearby bodies of water.

Left untreated, this waste can contaminate water supplies and spread diseases such as diarrhea, which is no small deal when medical attention, a clean area for recovery or even proper food and clean water are not readily available. Diarrhea alone caused about 2.6 million deaths in 2009.

Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of the Sulabh Sanitation and Social Reform Movement, was recently presented with the Sanitation Visionary Award for 2009 during the last World Toilet Summit. His revolutionary twin-pit pour flush toilet organically breaks down human feces and urine and produces biogas and fertilizer out of them. This has reduced the need for human waste scavengers by over 60,000 since the technology was introduced in 2007.

The product from the human excreta can safely be used as fuel for cooking or for street lamps. It can also be sold to electric companies for burning.

Instead of merely finding ways to dispose of or treat the waste, Dr. Pathak came up with a product that solves many problems at once. Furthermore, rather than selling for a profit, he distributes the toilets practically free.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about philanthropy.