CHIENG: Bill Gates:
 he's rich, he's brilliant,
 and apparently,
 he's out of his mind.
This is a container
of human feces.
CHIENG: Why is one
 of the richest men in the world
 carrying a jar of his own shit?
 I went to Seattle to find out
 what's wrong with Bill Gates.
Mr. Gates,
it's a huge honor to meet you.
Just a quick question.
What the (bleep) is wrong
with you?
I mean, are you okay?
Yeah, I'm great.
Love what I'm doing.
Okay, so why are you carrying
around your own poop in a jar?
I did, uh, have a beaker
of human feces
when I was explaining
why we need a reinvented toilet.
You don't need to reinvent
a toilet.
We shit in it,
then we push a button,
then the shit disappears.
It's perfect.
Well, toilets are something
we take for granted,
but billions of people
don't have them.
Even in these growing cities
in poor countries,
 they can't afford
 to build sewers,
 and that causes diseases.
And so we have to come up
with a very different way
of taking care of that waste.
CHIENG: And because so much
 of the world
 lacks a sanitary place to poo,
 Bill launched
 the Reinvent the Toilet
 Challenge.
 It funds scientists
 to redesign toilets
 that don't need a sewer system.
We put several hundred million
into this
-to show that it can be done.
-Wait, sorry, hang on.
You put several hundred million
dollars into toilets.
Giving it away, you bet.
CHIENG:
 Oh, my God. Is Bill Gates
 literally flushing his fortune
 down the toilet?
 To find out, I flew all the way
 to University of South Florida,
 where Professor Daniel Yeh
 and his team
 are using Gates' funding
 to make some sort
 of magic poop box.
So, what we have here,
essentially,
is a miniature version of
the wastewater treatment plant,
and we can put this anywhere
in the world.
In the bioreactor,
we have microorganisms.
They, uh, eat the poop
and turn it into clean water.
Okay, why do the microbes
eat the poop?
The microbes eat the poop
because that's what they do.
Did you ask them
if they want to do that?
Well, uh...
Yeah, why don't you give them
a muffin or something?
Maybe they'd like a muffin.
Uh, okay,
I'll make a note of that,
but, um, when you show them
the poop, they love it.
 Despite his crazy talk, there's
 just something about this guy.
 I don't know what it is,
 but I trust him.
 So I decided
 to give his machine a try.
♪ ♪
(exhales)
So, normally, uh, we would have
a block of toilets, right,
and then the waste from
the toilets would come here,
it'll go into the machine,
and then, using solar power,
we can turn the poopy water
into clean water.
-So, you stand by this?
-Yeah.
Well, prove it.
Okay.
♪ ♪
-Did it work?
-Yeah.
Well, how many times
did it not work
and you ended up drinking
your own shit?
Well, it's worked so well that,
um, we're actually working
with NASA.
Astronauts have to poop,
and we can turn that poop
into clean water
and nutrients and even energy.
-Wait, did you say "energy"?
-Yeah.
The, uh, microbes
in the bioreactor make methane.
That's the same stuff
that's in natural gas,
and you can burn it.
 Bill Gates, you sneaky bastard.
 You just found
 a filthy little back door
 into the most profitable
 industry in the world,
 energy.
You didn't say anything
about energy!
Yeah! One way to make it cheap
to process the sewage
is to sell these outputs.
You should open with that
next time.
Don't open with the "saving the
world, kids, and disease" thing.
Open with,
"Yo, we're making toilets
that can convert shit
into energy."
We need to make these toilets
as expensive as possible,
'cause, based on my research,
everyone poops.
I mean, everybody.
Well, unless we make them
super cheap,
they're not gonna get out
to the poorest
who need them the most.
Look, I know
you've made your money.
Some of us here are still trying
to win this game.
Well, if you have an idea,
let us know.
I've got nothing but ideas
for this.
-Okay.
-So, this is an iPad.
-(chuckles)
-Great device.
-I love using it. Um, so,
-Hey, hey, yeah.
what's the worst seat
on a plane? Next to the toilet.
But what if every seat
was a toilet?
Poop-powered planes.
To keep the plane in motion,
we have to keep shitting.
High pressure, I know,
but it gives the airlines
incentive to feed us.
I-I'm not sure the numbers work.
How 'bout this?
It's a toilet that you shit in,
and it powers a cannon
that shoots the shit out
to my neighbor's house.
(laughing)
Why are you laughing?
That's not legal.
Listen, man, I'm up here
just trying to come up
with ideas here
to save the world, okay?
-What are you doing?
-Um...
that's what I'm doing.
No, that's what I'm doing.
I'm here giving you ideas.
All you're doing
is shitting on them.
Well, I don't think...
those ideas are-are ready yet.
But we do have a lot of ideas
that are in the field,
uh, being tested in Durban.
 Trying to cover the 30%
 of their residents
 that don't have, uh,
 great sewage processing.
 We are gonna completely change
 the future.
 Everybody's gonna have
 a great toilet.
Well, here's to everyone
having a great toilet.
Cheers.
-(gulps, sighs)
-(sighs)
Not bad.
Now guess where that came from.
You just drank my shit.
How's it taste?
That's a very successful process
there.
It-it tasted like normal water.
Good job.
CHIENG:
 Thank you, Bill.
 There's more
 where that came from.
(laughter)
