So what’s in your water?

Typically, you would expect just plain H₂O and maybe a little bit of fluoride; According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that’s exactly what should be in ours, both tap and bottled. Generally, our drinking water comes from ground or surface water, but Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, is promoting a new way for people to get water.

Waste. Human waste from sewers. To be more specific, Gates is supporting Seattle-based company Janicki Bioenergy. The company has developed a machine that actually produces water made of waste, known as the Omnipressor.

The Omnipressor uses a simple process to produce this drinking water. According to the Janicki Bioenergy Company, the waste is boiled, filtered while it is in its vapor form, condensed into water and then treated again once in the liquid form.

Because this water meets standards enforced by the FDA and World Health Organization, the Omnipressor will be able to continue using human waste to produce drinking water.

According to Janicki Bioenergy, this machine can produce about 10,800 liters per day. As a result, Janicki and Gates have hopes to mass produce this water in third world countries and provide the people with clean water.

“More than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related causes. Nearly all deaths, 99 percent, occur in the developing world”, according to water.org. With these facts in mind and the Omnipressor producing large amounts of clean water, Gates and Janicki hope to curb the numbers.

Water made from human waste is almost an inconceivable thought. However, Janicki Bioenergy and Bill Gates, with funding from the Gates Foundation, are working to make waste-water very possible and very much a part of the future.