Solar bottle lights in a Ugandan Kitchen

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Solar bottle lights in a Ugandan kitchen | 50W Plastic bottle daytime light
 

Uploaded by sendacow on Jan 5, 2012

http://www.sendacow.org.uk Helen from Uganda shows how she is trialling using 1.5 litre plastic water bottles as a way of lighting her dark kitchen in the daytime. She uses the bottles, filled with water and a little bleach, grouped in 3s over her cooking areas in her dark mud kitchen with grass roof. Techniques like this can reduce eye strain and the need for electric lighting where electricity is too expensive or not available.

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Comments:

• You could make larger "windows" by grouping more bottles together. You could also embed them into the mud walls when the house is being constructed, to let in more light from the sides. Attaching cloth flaps (from old clothes or feed sacks) over these windows would serve as shutters if you don't want as much light coming in.

  ElveeKaye 

   
• @ElveeKaye : Making "windows" embedded in the walls by grouping more bottles is a great idea. You could do colored water for "stained glass" windows! And as you suggested, if you want curtains, using feed sacks or old cloths - sewing together old t-shirts, for example - could make great curtains What a great idea. Can't wait to try this here in Guatemala.

  CommentsSurvey (Catherine Todd)