Upcycle Soda Bottles into Solar Lamps!
Plastic can be recycled, though often not as well or as cheaply as we’d like to believe. And despite that, huge amounts of plastic end up in landfills and in the world’s oceans. So, instead of recycling, why not upcycle that plastic soda bottle into a glowing Solar Bottle Lamp? Upcycling is the practice of reusing items in ways not originally intended as a way to extend their useful life, and this project is a great way to make some decorative lights out of something that would otherwise be thrown away. This very neat product by Open Green Energy is a creative and Eco-friendly way to divert some plastic from the waste stream and get a very pretty and useful object as the end result!
The kit comes with the PCB & all the components needed to make it. Optionally, they can send you the 3D printed enclosure, solar panel, and battery connector, or you could use your imagination and upcycle something else to work as the case? Or just bust out your 3D printer with recycled plastics, perhaps taking inspiration from this excellent talk by Helen Little from the recent Open Hardware Summit on how to test different recycled plastics for 3D printing.
Open Green Energy also separately sell their high-efficiency solar panels, which are very handy to have for powering outdoor projects, as well as another spin on the Bottle Lamp but instead using mason jars. Another important goal of the project is to help provide reusable, simple, inexpensive lights for people living in rural India who may not have access to reliable electricity. We think that’s a commendable goal!