In 2012, American Standard partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop the SaTo, a sanitary toilet pan designed to improve sanitation and reduce the spread of disease in Bangladesh.

A new grant from the foundation will focus on addressing sanitation issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. A team of American Standard product engineers will visit Zambia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Kenya this fall to learn more about the specific needs in this part of the world. This time the objective will be to develop a hygienic toilet pan that can operate in a rural environment where water is less abundant. Prototypes will be tested in the field to obtain feedback from local residents on the effectiveness of the toilet pans during a subsequent trip to Africa.

Worldwide, 2.5 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation. Every day, 2,000 children die from lack of proper sanitation. The United Nations has set a 2015 Millennium Development Goal of reducing by half the proportion of people who lack access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

The work being done by American Standard in Bangladesh and Sub-Saharan Africa is designed to help make this goal a reality. This year American Standard is donating hundreds of thousands of SaTo sanitary toilet pans to Bangladesh, one for each of its Champion toilets sold in North America in 2013.

For more information on this announcement view the complete press release or email us.