Free electricity? Check. A sustainable use for the object every environmentalist loves to loathe? Check with exclamation point. A why-didn’t-I-think-of-this invention? Big fat check in bright, blinking lights. For some context, let’s back this train up a bit. The problem: In many of the world’s shantytowns, roofs are made of corrugated iron sheets, which do well to keep out the rain—but also almost all natural light. The solution: ‘A Liter of Light,’ a project in the Philippines that uses plastic bottles to spread the free light from the sun through the room below. When filled with a combination of bleach and water and then snugly inserted into custom-cut holes in a roof, the bottles-turned-natural light bulbs refract roughly 55 watts of light across a room, reports Reuters. Because bleach prevents the build-up of algae in water, the bottles can produce clean light for roughly five years. “If you can make a grassroots revolution wherein each and every person can have an improvement of life with green technology, then that little — if added together — can cumulatively improve… Filipino living,” said Ilac Diaz, one of the project’s creators, to Reuters. More than 10000 of the bottle lights have been mounted across metropolitan Manilla. In early July in the Manila slum known as Payatas, 200 volunteers built and inserted bottle lights for the community’s 2000 residents. Because their energy is now free, many citizens now have more money to purchase life’s essentials … …

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DIY Skylights Plastic Bottles Become 55 Watt Natural Light Bulbs in Shantytown Homes TakePart Inspiration to Action