Around 25,000 low-income homes in the Philippines have been lit up after the launch of a scheme to fit sunlight-powered "bulbs" made from old plastic bottles.
In a country where 40% of the population lives off less than $2 a day, the rising cost of power leaves many unable to afford electricity. Some use candles as a light source, but when generations of family members share a small, dark space in shanty towns, accidental and destructive fires are often the result.
The Liter of Light project was launched six months ago by the My Shelter Foundation, a Philippines-based NGO which aims to provide light to 1 million of the roughly 12 million homes who are either still without light or live on the threshold of having their electricity shut down.
The scheme uses plastic bottles filled with a solution of bleached water, installed into holes made in shanty towns' corrugated iron roofs, which then refracts the equivalent of 55W of sunlight into the room – during the day, at least. It takes five minutes to make, and using a hammer, rivet, metal sheets, sandpaper and epoxy, it costs $1 to produce.