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This episode of SciShow was brought to you by Bill Gates.
本期《科学秀》由gatesnotes.com赞助播出。
Most of the time, you don't have to think too much about our toilets.
大部分时候，我们不必对厕所寻根穷究。
I mean, you go, you flush, and unless you've caused a catastrophic clog or something, it just kind of works.
我是说，来也匆匆，去也冲冲，除非厕所被你堵了，此外它不过是一种工具而已。
But 4.5 billion people worldwide don't have access to safely managed sanitation.
但全球有45亿人享受不到管理安全的卫生设备。
It's a serious global health problem, with sanitation-related diseases causing an estimated more than 500,000 deaths every year in kids under 5.
这是一个严重的全球性健康问题，因环境卫生引起的疾病每年导致约50万五岁以下儿童死亡。
The simplest solution seems obvious: get more people access to safe toilets. But you can't just drop off a bunch of porta-potties.
最简单的解决方法似乎很明显：为更多人提供安全的厕所。但是你不能就放一堆移动厕所在那里。
Those only work if you have the infrastructure to treat the waste once you collect it.
只有当配备了相应基础设施建设，移动厕所才有效。
That's why research teams around the world are working on more sustainable types of toilets:
因此全球研究团队正在致力于研发可持续性更高的厕所：
ones that are cheap, don't require access to water, sewer, or power lines, and can last for a long time.
那种既便宜，又不需要水、下水道或是输电线，还可以长时间使用的厕所。
And some of the most promising options are surprisingly cool. Take the toilet being developed at Caltech, for example.
一些最有希望的选择相当的酷。例如，加利福尼亚理工学院研发的厕所。
It's one of the more advanced systems out there, using solar power to turn waste into treated water, hydrogen, and fertilizer. It even flushes.
这是现有的最先进的系统之一，利用太阳能将废物转化为净化水、氢和肥料。甚至可冲洗。
Here's how it works: You do your business and flush, sending the water, along with whatever you deposited in the toilet, into a holding tank.
它的工作原理如下：完事后，冲一下，将水和厕所排泄物输送至一个收集器中。
There, the larger particles of waste settle to the bottom and microbes start breaking them down, eventually turning the poop into fertilizer.
在那里，较大的颗粒沉入水底，微生物开始将它们进行分解，最终将便便转化成肥料。
Meanwhile, the liquidy leftovers go into a separate tank,
同时，液状残余物进入一个分离池，
which uses electricity to drive chemical reactions that disinfect the water, producing hydrogen gas in the process.
利用电驱动化学反应，将水进行消毒，在这一过程中产生氢气。
That's what the solar panels are for, they charge the batteries.
太阳能板就是为这一步准备的，它们可以给电池充电。
In theory, you could also use the hydrogen gas to generate some electricity, but that hasn't been incorporated into the toilet's design yet.
理论上，你也可以用氢气发电，但是这一步还没有和厕所的设计相整合。
After it's treated, the water travels through a filter into another tank,
进行处理后，水顺着过滤器流进另一个水槽中，
and is clean enough to use the next time you want to flush the toilet or for things like irrigating crops.
此时的水已经足够干净，可以用于冲厕所或灌溉农田。
This all sounds pretty awesome.
这一切听起来相当了不起。
But once the team started testing toilet prototypes in the real world, they ran into a problem: maintenance.
但一旦团队开始对厕所雏型进行实地测试，他们就遇上了一个问题：维护。
The Caltech toilet is complicated, and when parts broke down, there was no one around to diagnose and fix the problem.
加州理工学院的这个厕所很复杂，当部件出现故障，周围没人进行诊断和修理。
The group is working on a set of sensors to help figure out issues automatically so people can fix them without much training.
团队正在研制一套传感器帮助自动解决出现的问题，这样没受过多少培训的人员也可以进行修理。
But clearly there are some drawbacks to a system where so many things can break.
但是很明显一个会出现这么多故障的系统存在弊端。
So other researchers are working on solutions that would be more viable for developing countries,
所以其他研究人员正在研究解决方法，让这种厕所在发展中国家更加可行，
like terra preta sanitation, a method that actually goes back thousands of years.
比如亚马逊黑土卫生设备系统，这种方法可追溯到千年前。
Back in the day, some indigenous groups in the Amazon used to mix excrement, other types of organic waste,
那时，亚马逊的一些原住民过去会将粪便、其他类型的有机废物
and charcoal in airtight containers, which produced super-fertile soil now known as terra preta.
和木炭相混合在一个密封容器中，这样可以产生一种超级肥沃的土壤，现在也称亚马逊黑土。
This stuff is so effective as a fertilizer that hundreds of years after they stopped doing this,
这种物质是一种很高效的肥料，因此在停止使用该技术百年之后，
there are still areas in the Amazon where the soil is three times more fertile than the surrounding dirt.
亚马逊仍有一些地方的土壤的肥沃程度是周围泥土的三倍。
Over the last decade or so, researchers have been using the same idea to develop a safe sanitation system.
在过去十多年中，研究人员一直在运用同一种想法研发一种安全的卫生设备系统。
The main difference is that you need to do something with the pee.
主要的不同是你需要处理尿液。
So terra preta toilets divert liquid and solid waste into separate tanks, using a special mix of microbes to treat the urine and turn it into liquid fertilizer.
所以亚马逊黑土厕所将液体和固体废物转移至分离池中，利用一种微生物的特殊混合处理尿液并将其转换成液体肥料。
The poop tank also gets a special blend of microbes,
便池也有一种微生物的特殊混合，
along with a mix of charcoal and wood that helps make sure there's enough carbon for the composting process later on.
还有木炭和木材的混合，以帮助确保之后的堆肥化过程有充足的碳。
Bonus: the charcoal gets rid of the smell.
好处是，木炭可以消除异味。
After about a month, the processed poop is ready for the next step, called vermicomposting, which is what will actually turn it into fertilizer.
大概一个月后，经过处理的便便就可以进入下一步—蚯蚓堆肥，这一步是真的将其转换成肥料。
The "vermi-" prefix comes from the Latin word for “worm,” and the whole thing is basically driven by earthworms.
“vermi-”这个前缀源自拉丁词“蠕虫”，并且整个过程基本是靠蚯蚓驱动。
You put the processed poop into either a pile or a container, then add some worms.
将处理过的便便放进集装箱中，然后放入一些蠕虫。
Together, the worms and microbes take nutrients like potassium and phosphorus in the processed poop
蠕虫和微生物共同吸取处理便便中的营养物，如钾和磷
and turn it into compounds like humic acids, which help plant roots absorb more nutrients.
并将它们变成化合物，如腐殖酸，这些化合物可以帮助植物根基吸收更多营养。
And, voila: you've got some nice, fertile terra preta.
哇啦，快看！你得到了一些细腻肥厚的黑土耶！
There are some challenges to this system: for one thing, you need to be able to either make or get more of those microbe and charcoal mixes.
这个系统还有面临一些挑战：其一，你要会制作或获取更多的微生物混合物和木炭混合物。
Otherwise the process won't work.
否则就无法成功的。
There also needs to be some demand for the terra preta, or else you'll just end up with a bigger and bigger pile of fertilizer.
对黑土也有要求，否则你最终得到的不过是一坨越来越大的肥料。
So, too complicated, like the Caltech toilet, and you risk the toilet breaking. Too basic and you have to figure out what to do with the leftovers.
太复杂的话，比如像加州理工学院这样的厕所，你要面对厕所故障的风险。太简单的话，你不得不思考怎么处理剩下的残余物。
But maybe there's a nice middle ground for Goldilocks to poop in.
但是或许可以折中一下，让金凤花姑娘来处理一下。
Like a toilet being developed at the University of Toronto that disinfects liquid waste and incinerates the solid stuff.
多伦多大学正在研发的厕所可以将废液消毒并焚烧掉那些固体物质。
Like the terra preta toilet, the Toronto toilet is designed to do the separating for you.
和黑土厕所系统一样，多伦多大学的这种厕所可以替你进行固液分离。
Solids end up on a conveyor belt, which we'll get to in a sec, and liquid goes into a tank.
最终固体进入传送带，液体进入水槽。
First, the liquid is filtered through sand, which removes contaminants that might be in there, like parasite eggs, which you really don't want in your water.
首先，用砂砾过滤液体，清除液体中的污垢物，比如寄生虫卵，你是绝对不想水中有这些东西的。
Then it's sent to a chamber with a UV light, which kills off any microbes.
然后被送至紫外光室进行杀菌。
Meanwhile, you turn a crank that moves the solid waste along that belt I mentioned.
同时，你转动曲柄，通过上文提到的传送带将固体废物移走。
As other people use the toilet and also turn the crank, the poop gets flattened by the belt and is dried by fans.
其他人上完厕所也会转动曲柄，所以传送带上的便便一路畅通无阻，风扇也会将它给吹干。
The belt leads to a smoldering chamber, which works kind of like a charcoal grill, in that, it will just keep going until there's nothing left to burn.
传送带通向阴燃室，这个阴燃室有点像是炭火烤架，一直燃烧直到没有什么可燃烧的了为止。
The fan and UV light rely on a battery connected to a solar panel,
风扇和紫外光依靠一个连接太阳能板的电池运转，
but there are no complicated electrochemical processes involved like with the Caltech toilet.
但和加州理工的那个厕所不同的是其中不涉及任何复杂的电化过程。
And there's nothing like fertilizer that could accumulate if you don't use it. Poop and pee go in, and water and ash come out.
没什么能像肥料一样，不是用的时候，可以堆积起来。进去的是便便和尿液，出来的却是水和灰烬。
Perfect for Goldilocks. There's still a lot of work to be done to make safe sanitation available to everyone, no matter how the toilets are designed.
完美的中和。不论如何设计，仍需要大量工作确保其使用安全。
But, since 2000, efforts like these have helped 1.4 billion people get access to at least basic sanitation,
但自2000年以来像这样的努力已经帮助14亿人用上了基本卫生设施，
the type where they have access to some type of facility, even if the waste disposal process isn't totally safe.
他们可以使用到一些类型的设施，即便其废物处理并非绝对安全。
So hopefully, we'll be able to extend that to the others who still need it. This episode of SciShow was brought to you and sponsored by Bill Gates.
希望我们可以将其带给更多需要的人。本期《科学秀》由gatesnotes.com赞助播出。
Visit GatesNotes.com or check out the link in the description below to learn more about the safe sanitation problem and strategies that can help,
登录GatesNotes.com或是点击下方链接了解更多安全卫生设施问题，以及其有用的策略，
including other toilets being developed by teams around the world and the progress that's been made so far.
比如世界各团队研发的其他厕所以及目前的进展。
