Generally, Light bulbs are made from glowing metal filaments, LED diodes and fluorescent gas that are cost pennies to manufacture and install also has a shelf life of months. But, now we can find the cheapest light bulb which requires no electricity, battery or consumable power source and this is just simply made from one litre plastic bottle, water and bleach.
Millions of shantytown homes in the developing world such as Manila, where most houses are built closely to each other and leaving residents the choice of complete darkness due to the lack of windows and the metal roofs block all light, and in a condensed settlement dwellers cannot access to electricity. However, with this Liter of Light project which was launched recently by Illac Diaz, of non-profit My Shelter Foundation aims to solve that predicament through an unexpected and highly inexpensive technology: old soda bottles and to light up houses of one million households by the end of 2012. With the help of many local governments, a Liter of Light and its collaborators have installed 12,000 solar bottle bulbs, lighting 10,000 homes in five Filipino provinces.
Previously this idea of plastic bottle bulb was firstly discovered by a Brazilian engineer, Alfredo Moser, where he started using this technique to shine his dark workplace during the year of 2002 power shortages in Sao Paolo.’
The setup: The plastic water bottles are cleaned, filled with water and bleach, and tucked snugly into holes cut into a roof. When sunlight hits the bottle, the water refracts the light and provides about as much illumination as a 50-watt light bulb.
Clearly this shows that it is not a solution for any normal home but without spending one penny on electricity maybe it may work in your temporary workshop, dark storage room or in your garden? Can anyone think of other places where this invention is useful to use? I can see that this technique has a huge impact in the third developing world. Watch the video of plastic bottle bulb in action. Moreover, a week ago, I found that this plastic bottle bulbs were also experimented at my friend’s college in Winchester School of Art, for their Quad-dome Hexayurt Model Structure, see image below (Image source from Bibi Khamimah Rusli, Student of WSA).
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