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Illuminating Window-Less Houses With a Plastic Bottle

Posted by timothy on from the completely-beats-cow-dung dept.

New submitter DancesWithWolves writes "The BBC reports on Alfredo Moser, who came up with a way of illuminating his house during the day without electricity — using nothing more than plastic bottles filled with water and a tiny bit of bleach. In the last two years his idea has spread throughout the world. It is expected to be in one million homes by early next year.'"

14 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. Lighting on ships... by killfixx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've seen this type of lighting system before on old ships (USS Constitution, etc...).

    Instead of a water they used glass blocks (or similar).

    But, it's great to see a novel way of recycling trash into something beneficial! :)

    Cheers!

    --
    "Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
    1. Re:Lighting on ships... by batkiwi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      http://www.globalenvision.org/2011/08/18/used-soda-bottles-light-world-free

      So people in third world countries should just save up for 15 years to buy a commercial lighting system?

      This isn't about commercial use in wealthy areas, it's about giving light to the various areas in the world with "shack cities", where a few thousand people just shove up tin roofs and live in close proximity.

      It is both novel and beneficial to those people.

      Please think before you spew.

    2. Re:Lighting on ships... by RajivSLK · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You must be the biggest idiot in the world. The pop bottle skylights aren't for you in your single family home in pasadena. They are for people who earn less than $2/day. The free/cheap. The light pipes cost hundreds of dollars.

  2. Simple and zero energy cost by StuartHankins · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Elegant and no energy costs. It recycles something we all have handy. Easy to install also. Hard to argue with all those benefits!

    1. Re:Simple and zero energy cost by olsmeister · · Score: 3, Informative

      Wouldn't work here. I'd have an almighty mess after the first 20 degree night.

    2. Re:Simple and zero energy cost by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Funny

      Something tells me that bottles full of alcohol on a roof would not remain bottles full of alcohol for very long.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    3. Re:Simple and zero energy cost by Deadstick · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My best guess is that the freezing stretches the plastic a bit, especially the parts designed for structure such as the creases. Now the bottle has a higher volume and when the ice melts the plastic doesn't go back to its original shape but rather simply collapses.

      No, what's happening is that the light plastic screw-on cap is a bit less rigid than the bottle neck. Freezing raises the air pressure at the top, and a little bit of air manages to squeeze out of the interface. When the ice thaws, the pressure differential becomes negative, and the cap is pressed firmly onto the neck, preventing air getting back in.

      I tested this by putting a hose clamp around a cap, and the effect went away.

  3. Secure, too... by Urban+Garlic · · Score: 4, Funny

    They're completely unhackable!.

    Soon they'll be mandatory in Enterprise deployments.

    --
    2*3*3*3*3*11*251
  4. Re:Glass bottles by lxs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's a rudimentary light pipe really. Clever but not much use unless you're directly underneath a flimsy roof. That said, I'd like to see more real light tube installations in multistory buildings. Sunlight beats both LED and fluorescent in energy efficiency and light quality.

  5. Re:aliteroflight.org did it first by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Informative

    Moser actually came up with the idea back in 2002 in Brazil. The "last two years" mentioned in the summary is a reference to efforts to spread the idea around the world, of which the site you mentioned is one such example. That site started about two years ago, and if you check the About page, you'll see that they credit him as the originator of the idea and mention that they are working to spread the idea in the Philippines.

  6. So the solution . . . by dmatos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    to illuminating a house with no windows is . . . to add windows? Wow.

    I mean, some kudos are deserved for finding an inexpensive (almost free) way to add windows, and using windows whose shape provides some refractory scattering of the incoming light. Still though, his solution to no windows was literally TO ADD WINDOWS.

    --

    It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
    --Scott Adams
    1. Re:So the solution . . . by tocsy · · Score: 3, Informative

      The important part is really that his idea doesn't use electricity and recycles widely available waste to provide the lighting. It also provides more light than a window the same size would, so I imagine it doesn't create as large of a structural problem.

      I worked with a non-profit called Long Way Home a few years ago who I believe was doing this, along with using plastic bottles and used tires for to build a structurally sound, environmentally friendly school in Guatemala. Unfortunately I couldn't find a picture of the plastic bottle lights in use but if you're interested, check out their website - they could use the exposure.

  7. Not perfect... by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is Slashdot, where perfect is the enemy of good.

    Because there are edge use-cases where this won't work, it's completely unsuitable for ALL applications.

    Or, to put it another way, because it won't work in some guy's shed in Anchorage, poor people in Africa, Asia and South America should continue to toil in the dark until a proper solution involving LEDs and / or light pipes is made available.

    Now, instead let's discuss how 2014 will definitely be the year of Linux on the desktop.

  8. Re:Glass bottles by lxs · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's what I hate about shanty towns. No food or running water but every shack has a hardwood floor and is filled with antique furniture. This morning there was a guy outside my office begging for a few coins so I told him: "I will buy you some drugs but I won't give you money. You'll only spend it on a Louis XV side table." You have to be tough with these people or they'll never learn.