This ingenious no-electricity cooler made with plastic bottles is helping Bangladesh cope with summer

A Bangladeshi inventor has made a simple yet effective cooler to help poor residents of his country cope with skyrocketing temperatures during summer without any electricity. His tools? Used plastic bottles.

Ashis Paul's eco-cooler is a zero-electricity air conditioner that uses repurposed plastic bottles to draw cool air into tin huts, in the absence of electricity. It became a low-cost and environment-friendly solution for Bangladesh's poor citizens, a majority of whom live in corrugated tin huts, which can get unbearably hot during summer, when temperatures rise up to 45 degree Celsius.

The cooler is designed by cutting plastic bottles in half, and then placing them in a grid on a board. This is then placed on the wall like a window frame. It works on the principle that the bottle's neck can compress the hot breeze and cool it down, dropping temperatures inside the house by as much as five degrees.

The project is a collaborative effort between Bangladesh's Grey Group and Grameen intel Social Business Ltd., whose volunteers teach residents how to make the eco-coolers with discarded plastic bottles. They have also put up an instruction manual on their website. So far, the coolers have been installed in over 25,000 homes across the country. 

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