The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has purchased 50 pounds of fake poop for a good cause. No the not-for-profit is not running around its massive headquarters pranking employees, instead the organic version of fake poop which is made from soybeans is being used to test a group of high-tech toilets at next weeks Reinvent the Toilet Fair.

The agency didn’t want employees to bring in real poop to its Seattle office for smell and health reasons.

While the Gates Foundation has mostly focused on malaria prevention and various vaccines the organization has recently taken a keen interesting in sanitation. The agencies interest in sanitizing has come about as 2.6 billion people in the world do not have access to clean toilets. The Gates Foundation estimates that 1.5 million children could have been saved in 2011 had they been given access to better sanitation.

To create the fake poop a team of researchers had to mix soybean paste to just the right consistency and moisture content to create the poop. The fake excrement was then performance tested.

Realizing that many areas in the world don’t have access to proper water or power supplies the Gates Foundation in late 2011 gave eight engineers more than $3 million to develop toilets that don’t require water, can be run without electricity and don’t need a connection to a sewage system.

If all goes as planned the toilets will create clean air and waste that can be used as fertilizer for farming.

All of the various toilets created by Gates sponsored engineers will be shown off between August 14 and August 15.

Winners who will show off their advanced toilets in front of Bill Gates will receive more money to further develop their commodes. All of the engineers will use the fake poop in order to ensure a standard testing option between toilets.

Bill Gates Buys 50 Pounds Worth Of Fake Poop is a post from: The Inquisitr