Illuminating Window-Less Houses With a Plastic Bottle 240
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.'"
Lighting on ships... (Score:5, 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!
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If you're ever in SoHo in New York, look down. See all those marbles embedded in the sidewalk next to stores? Same thing.
They were doing that long before electricity was used to light the basements of buildings.
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If you're ever in SoHo in New York, look down. See all those marbles embedded in the sidewalk next to stores? Same thing.
They're very common in Britain, generally in the denser (and older) bits of cities. Some searching shows they're called "pavement lights".
http://www.newageglass.co.uk/glass-block-services/details/in-situ-pavement-lights [newageglass.co.uk]
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Deck prisms. (Score:2)
I've seen this type of lighting system before on old ships (USS Constitution, etc...).
Deck prisms have been used for centuries.
DeckPrisms.com sells reproductions for decorative use and restoration. Marine supply houses sell them with frames. Fixed Portholes and Deck Prisms [sailboatstuff.com]
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They look alot like those geo things that people would fill with costume gems and say they had magical powers.
Re:Lighting on ships... (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.globalenvision.org/2011/08/18/used-soda-bottles-light-world-free [globalenvision.org]
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.
Re: Lighting on ships... (Score:3)
I'm not sure I understand the purpose. Having been in huts of several different designs, and a few urban shanties, daytime light doesn't seem to really be a problem. You spend most of the daylight outdoors abyway, and when you're not you use windows or open the door.
I'm not sure anybody I visited would be too enthusiastic about cutting holes in their nice thatched roof, and certainly not in that status-symbol tin one. Waterproofing the pop bottle skylight would be a bit of a problem.
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Re:Lighting on ships... (Score:4, 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.
Need to diffuse the light a bit... (Score:2)
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OTOH any unevenness could be a benefit. The light will be somewhat diffuse in any case. If anyone needs intense light, any hotspots can be used for that.
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depending on the plastic, it may cloud up as it ages in any case, or start with cloudy plastic (i.e. plastic milk bottles).
I wonder how long one of these bottles will last out in the Sun and Weather? Aren't these plastic bottles made to biodegrade?
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Like barbaric idiots we still have no laws mandating that anything produced be recyclable or biodegradable. Faced with the facts of how plastic kills wildlife and pollutes the environment, we just happily keep producing more.
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I leave plastic out, it becomes brittle and breaks. Are you suggesting it is more durable than it is when exposed to ultraviolet?
Or did you focus is a single word and use it to post a knee jerk response that, while it may be true, is unrelated?
And, outside of laws, some companies do sell a green message, and provide products intended to degrade more quickly. Are those not within the scope of discussions?
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Oh god, your naivety would be so funny if our reality wasn't so sad.
Like barbaric idiots we still have no laws mandating that anything produced be recyclable or biodegradable. Faced with the facts of how plastic kills wildlife and pollutes the environment, we just happily keep producing more.
Nobody said the bottles weren't recyclable (recyclable in the traditional sense; this story is about a novel way to recycle bottles).
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Your optimism is noted but misplaced. PET plastics [wikipedia.org] are recyclable but not biodegradable. The newer Bioplastics are however those are not readily used in production in any country where you would need to make a sun-light.
Simple and zero energy cost (Score:5, Insightful)
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Add a bit of salt, alcohol, or anti freeze.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freezing-point_depression [wikipedia.org]
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isopropanol does not freeze unless you count "Temperatures found at the south pole, or on mars" as being a sensible design concern.
Freezing and flashpoints of isopropanol + water solutions [engineeringtoolbox.com]
Failing that, you could fill the bottle with clear acrylic or epoxy resin instead of either, and it will NEVER freeze. it's a tad expensive [ebay.com] but the resulting bottles wont explode when heated, wont spring leaks, freeze, etc.
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The fact that you can pick places where the invention won't work doesn't diminish how useful it can be in the places where it does.
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Ah, Minnesota in wintertime. Once I was driving from Minneapolis towards a turkey farm town where the then mainframe resided in a room with wall-to-wall (walls included) deep puke green carpet and the car windows were freezing on the inside. Truely a memorable business trip.
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Add salt to the water.
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Somehow I find myself surprised that this is the second comment in the thread, rather than the first. Do we really need "won't work for me" posts on every story? Did anyone claim it was universally applicable and utterly flawless?
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Wouldn't work here. I'd have an almighty mess after the first 20 degree night.
Have you ever actually frozen a soda bottle? They survive just fine through many freeze-thaw cycles even while being exposed to UV. My mom used a wall of water-filled soda bottles as a way of regulating the temperature near some of her plants. They sat outside for years of winters before we got rid of them all. We also used some as ice-blocks for the cooler when picnicking - just made sure there was an air-gap for the water to expand into when freezing. I once tried filling a PET shampoo bottle with water (
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Most people heat the inside of their homes.
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Water expands as it freezes, wrecking most any container.
I like this idea a lot, but it certainly works best in warm climates.
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Most PET bottles can survive the ice expansion very well. It's the glass bottles that have most problems with it.
I know of a guy who takes water with him for long sport days by shoving the bottle into the freezer a day before. Ice slowly melts, keeping water cold throughout the hot day and bottle has no problems if it's a PET one.
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You again forget the target countries and communities. Temperatures rarely if ever enter freezing there. This is like trying to argue that every house, including those near polar areas and at equator should have powerful heating and AC. It's simply complete ignorance of real world scenarios.
Even if they had a freak freeze, the ice would not expand enough to do damage, as temperature would simply not fall that much below zero. Essentially as long as the bottle holds, they're golden.
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I keep a dozen bottles of water in my car, and don't bother to remove them in the fall. I get frozen ones all winter, and they never crack.
What does happen is that I find them partially collapsed in the spring, and use that as a puzzle for my engineering students.
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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.
Re:Simple and zero energy cost (Score:4, 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.
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The sealant around the bottle holding it to the roof wouldn't reliably hold for very long with repeated freeze/melt cycles. You'd want to fill them with an alcohol/water or pure alcohol mix instead (plus, you wouldn't need the bleach with alcohol).
Re:Simple and zero energy cost (Score:5, Funny)
Something tells me that bottles full of alcohol on a roof would not remain bottles full of alcohol for very long.
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And compresses the air in the air gap. As long as the air gap stays below the seal line, it's fine.
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Plus something to keep you warm if it gets below 20F.
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However bleach has dye in it that absorbs UV light and gives off visible light....to make your whites brighter!
Related video (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buMyJPQLS9U
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a few years from now hilarity ensues while the residents squatting in mold, mildew and filth bemoan the fact they were suckered to cut holes in the roof assuming they could obtain sealer and more bottle indefinitely. wait for it!
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Secure, too... (Score:5, Funny)
They're completely unhackable! [slashdot.org].
Soon they'll be mandatory in Enterprise deployments.
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They're only "unhackable" inasmuch as they aren't computerized or connected to any computer networks. But you can easily hack these to cause blackouts. Paint their exterior surfaces, for instance. Or unscrew the lid and let nature take its course over the next few weeks/months. Or punch a hole through it, which not only leaves them with reduced light, but also causes water damage to the interior of the room. And, if we're going down the tech route, surely we've already solved the problem of unscrambling ref
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Soon they'll be mandatory in Enterprise deployments.
Would be nice, but, at least in my current office, they are being ignored. The space above the ceiling is illuminated by "deck prisms" in the roof, but all the ceiling panels are opaque, so our work space does not get any of that - except when a facilities tech opens a panel to get at something above the ceiling.
Vandalism-prone (Score:2, Funny)
So the solution . . . (Score:5, 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.
Re:So the solution . . . (Score:4, 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 [lwhome.org] 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.
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Brilliant observation. Now kindly find us a near-free way to add windows that do not jeopardise the structural integrity of standard slum shack, while also providing shelter from winds and rain.
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Has it ever occurred to you to look at the buildings they are installed in, and note the quality of roofing. I'd wager 10:1 that other parts of the roof, ones with older roofing will leak much, much sooner than the new part with bottle insert will.
Not perfect... (Score:4, Funny)
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.
UV breakdown? (Score:2)
Solatube. (Score:2)
It's a poor man's Solatube [solatube.com]. However, in a hail-prevalent area like mine, I would go to the expense of a Solatube than plastic bottles.
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What kind of hail do you have that would damage the small end of a plastic bottle?
I'm trying to imagine how much force it would take to damage one.
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solartubes are horrible heat leaks. they are the worst thing in the world to install in any home that has insulation. What I am waiting for is 3" diameter acrylic rod that will do this for me and not have the ungodly heat losses that the solatube junk does. I had all 3 taken out of my home because of the losses they have.
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According to their web site, that is not completely true
The Solatube 160 DSe provides the ultimate in energy-efficient daylighting. Delivering natural light to spaces up to 200 sq. ft., it is designed to minimize heat loss in extremely cold climates and heat gain in extremely warm climates. As a result, this product has earned an Energy Star rating.
Everything I see about them is that they are no worse then a window/skylight and perhaps better on heat exchange. The residential model seem more for small areas and I have a @ 800sqft room I'd love to light up so it may be cost prohibative, but a pretty good product overall.
Yearly Slashdot post on this... (Score:3)
Honestly it seems that every year for the past 4 years slashdot herolds this.
Then HAD will do it in about 2 days.
Wow... (Score:2)
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If you have no sun, use your dotter.
Adding Phosphor? (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphor#Glow-in-the-dark_toys [wikipedia.org]
Just a thought; might help diffuse light in the daytime, as well as providing some light after dark.
Whether or not the materials to make such a modification are readily available in third-world countries I cannot speculate on.
Very cool idea, but (Score:2)
What happens when night falls?
Moonlight (Score:2)
Illuminating ... With a Plastic Bottle. And a dri (Score:3)
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Tools only require power in lazy post-industrial societies. Hand tools are inexpensive, effective and less costly to operate. I've cut steel roofing with hand snips in seconds.
Polyester resin is kind of a staple product. In post-industrial societies, it's sold for recreation in craft stores. But in less developed places, it's needed for boat building and all sorts of fabrication. Before 3D printers with their costly supplies, we made molds and used resin for pennies.
I imagine they are chosing it over t
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I remember reading about this a long time ago. Also, there was a short film about it on WIMP. Neat story, but definitely not new news.
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I remember reading about this a long time ago.
Is that why the summary says: "In the last two years..."?
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This is as old as clear plastic bottles.
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What the fuck is this doing on slashdot?
Ohhh... right. dice bought the place... nevermind.
Yeah, after Dice bought Slashdot there have been stories on nothing but smart hardware hacks such as this one. No Slashdot user has ever been known to like a hardware hack.
Old news, I'll give you that. But it's still a nice hack.
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Those flimsy plastic water/coke bottles *will* leak eventually, and ruin whatever flooring/furniture/equipment happens to be underneath them.
You mean, dirt? Did you look at the pictures of the places they are installing them?
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Those flimsy plastic water/coke bottles *will* leak eventually, and ruin whatever flooring/furniture/equipment happens to be underneath them.
You mean, dirt? Did you look at the pictures of the places they are installing them?
Right, because in poor, third-world countries, everyone has the exact same stuff in their homes, and in the exact same places.
tl:dr, it's a legitimate concern.
Re:Glass bottles (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a rudimentary light pipe [wikipedia.org] 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.
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Yeah, but given the sheer number of people around the world who do live directly underneath a flimsy roof ... this is the kind of thing which can be an improvement to probably millions of people for the cost of some plastic bottles and bleach.
Am I going to poke holes in the shingled and insulated roof of my townhouse to put in plastic bottles? Nope. Are there a huge amount of people in the world for which this would provide cheap lig
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I have a Solar Tube [solatube.com] in my house in California and it works excellently. Better looking but more expensive than this DIY version.
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If they leak they could ruin valuable antique furniture, hardwood floors, or even short their computers!
Re:Glass bottles (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.
Re:aliteroflight.org did it first (Score:5, 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.
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Moser didn't come up with shit. He just built a modern iteration of technology that has been around for thousands of years.
He came up with a modern iteration that can be widely and immediately deployed in the poorest parts of the world using freely available ubiquitous components and readily available installation skillsets?
I'm curious where you've set the bar before you give someone credit for coming up with something.
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If it's already sunny and you need light but have no electricity.. Get windows or go outside.
People using this have no money for glass, probably nothing for any other kind of windows, either. This will give a lot more than no light when it rains, too. People living in slums do not necessarily have the communal space you assume they have - if they can do things at home, chances are that's the place to do it.
Even if those things were to leak after three years, always, it would still be worth it for three years of work.
And what's with the night part? Do you think starlight will keep people from sleepi
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NEVER leaks, he claims, having done it for the first time 2 years ago.
Only 9 years out.
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Are you some kind of marketer hired to promote windows or something? Get a life.
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Well, they could cut the tops and bottoms off their 1 liter bottles, then slice down the side and unroll. Bam. Nice little 8x8 plastic window.
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Ah, must have never been in a slum, then. For some reason or another, the few slums I've been in are often arranged around straight or almost straight paths, paralleled together, with the shacks sharing one or more walls, or at least being built very close to each other. The population densities there probably beat a lot of western mid-rise residential neighborhoods (8-12 stories). Three of the walls are thus usually out of commission, any windows there wouldn't let much light in, unless the neighbor's shac
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Ah yes. The "let them eat cake" solution.
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My initial guess would be that a colored cap would tint or otherwise reflect whatever shade the cap was into the room. Black would reflect none. A white cap also probably would work reflecting nearly the full spectrum, but perhaps there is an issue with the light having different color temperature due to the reflection.
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The carbon black typically used to color plastic black is also a pretty good UV protectant. Could be the caps break down in the sun before the PET.
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So, who do you think this particular article is talking about?
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"First, where are they getting 14 hours a day of SUNLIGHT everyday,"
Nome, Alaska
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And this will be coming to the USA also, because they will have to jack up utility rates, just to
please the enviro-nuts in the USA.
I hate to break this to ya, Chief, but the jacking of utility rates has far less to do with "enviro-nuts" than it does greedy utility company executives.
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