Bill Gates-backed sanitation technology has reached a Hyderabad park; a public toilet opened in September treats and reuses water on site, bringing years of research into an everyday public facility

A sanitation technology backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has moved from years of research and development into everyday public use, with a new water-recycling public toilet now operating at Hyderabad's Lumbini Park. The facility, inaugurated in September, is designed to treat and reuse water on-site, reducing water consumption while offering a self-contained sanitation solution. The Net-Zero toilet, equipped with a water recycling system, was formally inaugurated by Telangana IT Minister Duddilla Sridhar Babu and Transport and BC Welfare Minister Ponnam Prabhakar, and the first such green toilet in the country is installed at the park.Hyderabad becomes home to first public deploymentThe installation at Lumbini Park marks the first public deployment of the ReFlow system, according to the company behind the technology. The unit was inaugurated in September 2026 by Telangana ministers and serves as a showcase for what ReFlow describes as closed-loop water infrastructure. The system is solar-powered, uses on-site water treatment and is designed for zero discharge operations.According to The New Indian Express, the facility was established at a cost of around Rs 1 crore and uses a water-recycling system that treats and reuses water multiple times rather than relying on conventional sewage infrastructure.How it worksReFlow describes the unit as a containerised toilet with on-site treatment, designed not to discharge effluent. Instead of sending waste to a sewer or septic tank, the system treats water inside the container so it can be used again, and ReFlow’s pitch is that the toilet operates without a sewer connection. A Gates Foundation consultant, Vivek Pandey, cited the Lumbini Park unit at a recent Hyderabad event on wastewater as an example of treating wastewater where it is generated and reusing the recovered water for purposes such as flushing.Backed by Gates Foundation and T-WorksThe project was developed by environmental technology company ReFlow in collaboration with Telangana government's T-Works and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Hyderabad is also set to become a manufacturing hub for the technology, with the toilets expected to be supplied to other Indian states as well as international markets.The Gates Foundation has supported research into next-generation sanitation solutions for years, focusing on technologies that can safely process waste while reducing water use and infrastructure requirements. The Hyderabad deployment represents one of the latest efforts to bring those concepts into real-world public facilities.Designed to recycle water on siteUnlike traditional public toilets that require connections to large-scale sewer and water networks, the ReFlow units are designed to operate with integrated water-treatment capabilities. The technology treats and recycles water within the facility, allowing it to be reused multiple times. The units can also be relocated and installed in different locations based on demand. ReFlow describes the system as a "closed-loop" model that combines sanitation with on-site treatment and water reuse, aiming to reduce strain on urban water resources while improving access to public sanitation.A technology that began as a global challengeThe effort belongs to a long-running Gates Foundation programme to reinvent the toilet. The foundation launched a “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge” to create sanitation solutions that need no sewer or septic connection and turn waste into safe byproducts. Georgia Tech’s second-generation reinvented toilet, known as G2RT, is one such project, and field testing has taken place around the world. The reports I found do not spell out which specific research the Hyderabad unit draws on.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.