Light well from a plastic bottle, water and sunlight

The Brazilian mechanic Alfredo Moser, who in 2002 came up with a simple design of a light well from a plastic water bottle, is proud that he did not patent his invention . Thanks to Moser, such home-made lamps are now used in hundreds of thousands of homes in Tanzania, Bangladesh, Fiji, Argentina, India and the poor countries of the world, where people live in lockers without windows and electricity.

The idea is extremely simple. A hole is drilled in the roof where a 2-liter plastic bottle filled with water is hermetically inserted. Thanks to the refraction of rays in the water, the bottle effectively scatters the light indoors.



Measurements showed that one two-liter bottle gives a luminous flux similar to a 40-60-watt incandescent lamp.

If you fill the joint with the roof with a hardening silicone sealant, then even during heavy rain, not a drop will leak, says Moser.



Unlike the adventurous Edison, the Brazilian inventor did not earn a cent on his “light bulb”. He now lives in a simple house and drives a car in 1974. But he has something to be proud of: light wells of this type are already massively installed in at least 15 countries of the world. Although it is unlikely that the author himself could have suggested such popularity of the simple proposed construction, the fact remains. According to the director of the MyShelter Foundation charity with Phillippin, by the beginning of next year, plastic water bottles will illuminate the homes of approximately a million residents: “Alfredo Moser has changed the lives of a huge number of people, I think, forever,” he says.