Designnobis, a creative innovation firm, has developed a cheap lighting concept comprised of solar panels and discarded plastic bottles. The Turkish firm developed a product they call ‘Infinite Light’ — a solar lantern that could be a cost-effective way of supplying light to people in the developing world.
The lantern consists of a flexible solar panel and batteries fitted inside an empty plastic bottle (which increases the energy gain). During the day, the solar panel harvests sunlight, charging the batteries before switching to battery power in the evening once the solar energy has dissipated. The device is held together in a wire frame, with a handle for easy hanging or carrying.
Designnobis claims the concept can address two growing problems at the same time: the increasing amount of plastic bottle waste, and the millions of rural homes in developing countries with no access to electricity. With suggestions that we recycle only 9 percent of the 200 million plastic bottles we use daily, and the plastic pollution problem becoming an increasing issue in the Middle East North Africa region, the innovators hope that their new design could change people’s perception of plastic — that they may begin to see it as a free and valuable resource rather than as waste.
The young Turkish firm claim the use of waste plastic bottles as a key resource not only reduces the carbon footprint (relative to conventional lamps) of their product but also makes it much more cost-effective; since plastic bottles are ubiquitous everywhere, the devices can easily be assembled locally, while only the small solar panels and other pieces of the kit would need to be shipped.
“With Infinite Light, we aimed to create a sustainable lamp with minimum cost,” the designers at Designnobis told FastCoExist. “The lighting unit does not require any infrastructure, and it is a ready-to-use package that can be placed in a discarded plastic bottle. Durable and long-lasting, product aims to enlighten homes through a sustainable, inexpensive design.”
The device could go a long way to providing cheaper lighting, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, where power outages are common and access to electricity is a key problem in rural areas. The portability of the lantern also makes much easier to transport or carry, meaning it can be used anywhere — particularly useful in the Middle East where millions of people (most notably Palestinians, Syrians and Iraqis) have been displaced from their homes through political conflict.
For the moment, Infinite Light is at the concept stage, though the Designnobis team hopes to scale it into a commercial product. One of the options they’re considering for moving forward is a crowdfunding campaign.
The design follows on from a similar concept developed by Spanish firm Ona Product SL, in which researchers also attempted to generate a sustainable source of light using plastic bottles. The device uses LEDs, which use seven times less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs, according to a study conducted at Nottingham Trent University.
The team from Designnobis, led by Dr. Hakan Gürsu, were awarded top prize for their concept at the Green Dot Award 2013 ceremony — one of the world’s top eco-innovation awards, which aim to recognize outstanding products delivered in an environmentally friendly manner.
More and more companies are finding creative ways to tackle plastic bottle waste through upcycling — adidas, Levi’s, G-Star Raw and Dirtball are all spinning the material into their denim, and Thread is spinning it into a silky fabric lining a set of Moop canvas bags, while EKOCYCLE’s CUBE 3D printer can turn empty bottles into any number of items of your choosing.
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Published Aug 7, 2014 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT / 12am BST / 1am CEST