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The toilet developed by Bill and Melinda Gates, still in the testing phase, should interest Peru. The stated goal of the new scheme is to reduce the life and health of large countries like India, where water is scarce and where, according to the World Bank, open defecation accounts for 40% of the population, four times the world percentage. In Peru, it is 7%.
There is a debate about whether open defecation is a cultural characteristic inherited from very rural and sparsely populated times, or simply an imposition of circumstances: lack of access to toilets and the infrastructure that supports them. . The Gates have definitely bet on the second, and see in the OD, a social problem, especially technological.
The poor's access to water and wastewater on the Peruvian coast is a secular electoral promise. Efforts are there, but progress is slow. The networks of toilets and drainage are just one of many problems, but they are decisive for health and self-esteem. In this context, the spread of a toilet without running water would be of great help.
The problem of OD is not just lack of water. The problem, where it is available, is its contamination, which kills every year half a million children under five years old. This is not just water, but an alternative in which states can not build a health system to fight poverty and take time. For this are these attempts to "reinvent the toilet".
But since we are mainly talking about slums, price is an important factor. Gates does not sell them, but sells the product to Chinese companies, convinced they can lower the individual price to about US $ 500. It also looks like the kind of the entrepreneurial spirit that the authorities could subsidize in part. It is assumed that the population understands the benefits of the plan.
Gates toilets are in the background a substitute for those who use water and drainage systems, which are still preferable, despite all that they mean socially.
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