Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder and erstwhile richest man in the world (a title he’ll presumably regain as soon as the Bezos divorce is settled), and his wife Melinda have undoubtedly done a lot of good humanitarian work around the globe through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is also one of the most endowed (richest!) charity organizations in the world.

The foundation has made serious progress in combatting Malaria, the spread of HIV/AIDS and other venereal diseases, as well as a host of other illnesses; it has also taken many strides towards providing potable water and cheap, eco-friendly fuel sources, especially in underdeveloped regions within sub-Saharan Africa, India and other Asian nations.

However, it is the call of nature that the foundation is heeding the most, with it recently having awarded at least $4.8 million in grant money to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to perfect a new kind of toilet, the Tiger Toilet, as reported by Business Insider.

Before we begin with the toilet humour so requisite in such an article though, I’ll try and keep my mind out of the gutter and explain what a Tiger Toilet is. Actually, that’s exactly what it is: a toilet that’s kept out of the gutter.

Being not attached to sewer systems or using traditional flushing mechanisms, these toilets rely on biological agents to do all the dirty work. Tiger worms or Eisenia fetida feed and breed in and on various types of faeces, including barnyard dung and human crap; seriously, no bull.

The toilets, which resemble typical pit and portable latrines but do not use any chemical cleaning agents, have pre-installed compartments housing the worms, which break down human waste organically, leaving behind water, carbon dioxide, and a kind of “wormy compost”, which is also touted to be an excellent natural fertilizer.

“These worms, they won’t escape on their own, because they won’t survive in just soil. They need our human waste to live,” Ajeet Oak, Director, Tiger Toilet, told Business Insider. The system costs about $350 (Rs 25,000) to install and units don’t require any connection to drainage pipes or mainline sewers, making them far easier to set up in isolated areas, which lack the requisite infrastructure.

In any case, the toilet's performance stats are pretty impressive, as per its reports: as they process the feces, the worms remove 99% of all pathogens, and leave behind no more than 15% of the waste in weight, which is in the form of the wormy compost material. The rest becomes water (around 60-70%) and carbon dioxide. That's better performance than a septic tank.

True to its nature, this isn’t the first time India has tried to outsource its sanitation problems to 'lower' life forms. The Indian Railways, that storied institution, may still not run its trains on time, but it bucked the train when it tinkled, er, tinkered with the idea of ‘bio-toilets’. As per a release published by the Railway Ministry in early 2018, the national transporter had fitted about 1.25 lakh bio-toilets in trains across the country till March of that year, with the process having begun in 2011.

These toilets relied on a form of anaerobic bacteria, which converts the human waste mainly into water and small amount of bio-gases, which escape into atmosphere and waste water is discharged after chlorination onto the track, as reported by the Financial Express. That being said, several critics said that the system was a wash out. According to Down To Earth, T S Seshadri, who patented his own model of a bio-toilet in 2000, had said, "In 1994, bio-toilets of Microphor were installed in the Tamil Nadu and Grand Trunk Express coaches, and were a complete failure." Seshadri, who had reviewed the functioning of the bio-toilets at the time, said clogging of the filter led to foul smells, cockroaches and worms, and the toilets had to be removed within six months. The toilets also still utilized a not insignificant amount of water to flush down the detritus.

Conversely, the Tiger Toilet, which relies on larger critters, uses lesser water and needs minimal maintenance. The earliest units have been in use for more than five years and their worm compartments haven't needed any maintenance till date. Eventually, after about eight to 10 years, the company expects some toilet maintenance would be required after eight to 10 years, when the worm bin, would need to be emptied to free up room for a decade more of poop. It's not a terrible job - "you don't have to handle sludge," Oak told Business Insider.

Though it only recently became flush with funds, Tiger Toilets was set up in 2015, and has worked on approximately 4,000 units across India so far. Apart from the Gates Foundation’s indirect endowment, it also received $170,000 (roughly Rs 1.25 crore) from USAID for initial testing in India, Myanmar and Uganda, to provide convenient, eco-friendly and relatively cheap facilities to under-developed communities and areas.

Indeed, at a recent conference in Beijing, Bill Gates said he’s willing to invest an additional $200 million in developing technology for next-generation toilets that can operate without mainframe sewer systems. "We estimate that by 2030, the opportunity here is over $6 billion a year," Gates told the audience.

To get the worm system to market is an exciting prospect for Gates. He has even compared it to the invention of the personal computer. "A whole new product category is being introduced here," he said. After all the crap we’ve had to deal with in Microsoft’s user agreements and licenses, it’s only fair.

The only question that now remains is why did they call it Tiger Toilets, when Worm Hole was clearly up for grabs?