Bill Gates is spreading the word about the Janicki Omniprocessor, a machine that he believes will be able to help give more people access to clean drinking water. According to The Verge, the Gates Foundation greatly approves of the device, which is able to convert sewer sludge into water, electricity, and sterile ash that can be used as fertilizer.

To be more precise, the machine dries the waste and then burns it, creating steam that powers an engine that creates electricity. Meanwhile, the water removed from the sludge is filtered, creating clean water. Janicki operators are able to buy the sewer sludge at cost, and fund the operation by selling electricity back to the grid. Sounds great, but does the machine do what it promises?

Gates publicly test drove the machine's results, taking a sip of water that had been sewage waste just five minutes before. The Gates Foundation made a video demonstrating all the steps of the process.

According to Mashable, he stated, "I watched the piles of feces go up the conveyor belt and drop into a large bin... They made their way through the machine, getting boiled and treated. A few minutes later I took a long taste of the end result: a glass of delicious drinking water."

He continued, "The water tasted as good as any I've had out of a bottle... And having studied the engineering behind it, I would happily drink it every day. It's that safe."

The Janicki Omniprocessor is currently being used in a pilot project in Senegal. Mashable reports that Gates would like to see the idea spread across the developing world to reinvent the sewage treatment plant.

What do you think of this new project?