Indoor glow for all with ‘A Liter of Light’
Billions of people worldwide live without access to electricity. In urban areas, the marginalized reside in densely populated informal settlements. For the financially challenged, paying expensive electricity bills simply isn’t an option. These households
In far-flung countryside areas, the situation is a bit different. Rural communities are often situated far away from the power grid that households are usually unable to access electricity. In both cases, the problem is the same. How does one bring light indoors in the most sustainable and cost-effective way?
Light in a bottle
The answer lies in sunshine, water, and chlorine inside a used one-liter plastic bottle. Simple to build and easy to install, solar bottle bulbs can be created from plastic water bottles.
A small hole is made on the roof of a house wherein a transparent, plastic bottle with clear water is fitted in. During the day, sunlight is refracted by the water bottle and spreads 360 degrees around the room. This device, which is powered by sunlight has the luminosity of a 60-watt bulb.
Adding bleach to the water discourages algal growth to make it clean and clear. Each bottle can last up to five years before corrosion damages the plastic. These solar bottle bulbs are usually installed in homes where lighting is typically poor or entirely absent.
My Shelter Foundation executive director Illac Diaz recounts how the ‘A Liter of Light’ (Isang Litrong Liwanag) initiative came about. “We talked to the students of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and then we came across Brazilian mechanic Alfredo Moser’s work. We took a plastic bottle. The light goes to the bottle and through the water. By bending light, you don’t have to have a larger aperture. At the same time, you have a magnificent amount of light coming in and bending, hitting the walls. On the average, it reduces 40 percent off your electricity bills. Once you light up a house, it will never go back in the darkness again,” Diaz says.
A livelihood and advocacy
The use of plastic bottles to provide indoor lighting from daylight was developed by Alfredo Moser of Brazil and Suryaan Nadeen of New Zealand. Using the technology, a social enterprise was introduced in the Philippines by Illac Diaz under the My Shelter Foundation in April 2011.
For sustainability, the foundation implemented a “local entrepreneur” business model wherein bottle bulbs are assembled and installed by local people, who can earn a small income for their work. Within months, a single carpenter and a set of tools in a community in San Pedro, Laguna expanded into 15,000 solar bottle bulb installations in 20 cities and provinces nationwide. The success began to inspire other local initiatives around the world.
My Shelter Foundation also established a training center that conducts workshops with the youth, business companies, and other groups who are interested in volunteering their time to build lights in their communities. In less than a year, over 200,000 bottle bulbs were installed in communities around the world. The ‘A Liter of Light’ initiative aims to light up one million homes by the end of 2015.
Since its inception, the A Liter of Light initiative has been established in Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Spain, Switzerland, Tanzania, Uganda, the US and Zambia.