Eco-Friendly Lighting for Poor Communities

Wow! Here's a fantastic way to bring light to the world's poor with eco-friendly low tech: recycling plastic water bottles as 50-watt light bulbs that need no power source besides the sun! Students at MIT came up with this low-cost way to harness water's properties of light refraction to illuminate a room. All that's needed is a piece of tin roofing, a water bottle, water and a few spoonfuls of bleach to keep out algae. The bottle works as a skylight, with the water inside scattering sunlight in all directions instead of just straight down.

The Isang Litrong Liwanag ("Liter of Light") project is one of the initiatives of the MyShelter Foundation headed by Filipino entrepreneur Illac Diaz. He first adopted the idea of water bottle lighting to build sustainable schools in low-income areas. In April 2011, Mr. Diaz kicked off the Liter of Light project, creating $1 kits for families to use in their homes. According to this BBC interview, 15,000 families installed water bottle lighting within the first four months.

Even when electricity is available, many of the world's poor cannot afford to pay for it. This way, they don't have to keep the lights off to save money for food. Some locals may also earn a little money creating and installing the lights.

The more we can think of solutions like this, which create jobs, help cash-strapped families save money, and recycle, the better the planet will be.