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I love to recycle things.
We all know why we have to recycle.
Something that we can chew for a few minutes,
an hour maybe,
takes a long time to get rid of.
Plastic bags about 100 years,
bottles a thousand years,
and a plastic bottle,
well, just a very very long time.
This specially in a country such as ours,
which is an archipelago, 7100 islands.
When the plastics and the bottles come in to the island,
there is very few reasons for it to go out.
So, either they bury it,
or sometimes they just put it out into the sea, and it just floats away.
So, one of the things that we were empassioned about
is really recycling.
But, not recycling in the usual sense.
But, we were an NGO.
We wanted to change the world in a big way,
but really we just had just little money.
And so we were thinking,
what are the small things,
maybe those things that people don't look at,
that maybe we can get hold of,
begin a small NGO, and make the biggest things out of it,
maybe even change the world.
And you know, we had to look in the most -
well, places that people won't look,
just because maybe there could be a difference.
And so that plastic bottle became our total focus.
How can you change something so small into something so big?
And so what we did with the plastic bottle
was that we decided that maybe a great big problem
could actually be the biggest solution.
So we got all the plastic bottles that we could out of the junk yard.
And basically got people to fill them up with soil.
Well, actually many people to fill up many bottles of soil.
And what we did is started finding ways to stack it up
and build schools out of them.
So something so small (Applause)
but built by the community themself,
offer this impossible kind of solutions.
Basically what we wanted to do,
is not have everything pass through ourselves
to change other people's lives.
But, maybe give them technologies that they can do themselves,
which would make us obsolete.
Another thing that we did,
is try to look for something that could be viral.
Something that could change everything for people living in the darkness.
Why darkness?
Because in the developing world,
most people live, true enough, in darkness.
The houses are so close next to each other,
that no light comes in.
Even if you have a big window,
people pass in front,
so sometimes you close it with curtains.
The roofs are so watertight because of the rains,
the intense amount of rains.
So what we wanted to do is,
we found out that most people
actually could not pay the electricity bills.
Paying for it in the morning and paying in the evening,
just ended up with a big electricity bill,
that ended up [with] electric companies cutting their supply.
So we wanted something changed.
If light is so important for education,
for houses, for schools,
what could we do with something that people have not thought of before?
And so this is what we did with a simple bottle.
(Video) Man: This is our place, Sitio Maligaya.
This is a poor place, right next to a railroad,
where houses are built very close to each other.
It's really dar in here, even during the day.
We don't stay indoors.
We're always outside.
You never know when you might trip over something.
I just sleep since I don't have any light anyway.
Man: Here, they call me "Solar Demi".
Because I've brightened up their dark homes.
You punch a hole on a piece of metal roofing.
You slip in a bottle.
Apply some sealant.
Then fill it with filtered water.
Add some bleach
and install it on the roof,
make sure it's sealed.
It's that simple.
It used to be this dark before I installed the bottle.
This is how bright it is now.
Woman: I was amazed.
I never thought a soda bottle
could brighten my home.
Man: My electric bill really went down after I got this.
And this solar bottle bulb never heats up.
woman: That solar bottle
has really brightened up my day.
Man: So far, we've installed 643 bottles.
We want to keep going
so we can help brighten even more homes.
Woman: It's just as bright as an electric bulb.
We used to take this bottle for granted.
Now, we can't live without it.
Our home is so bright now!
(Applause)
Illac Diaz: The 3 rules we follow are [these]:
first of all, it must be found in any of the poorest communities.
Yes, solar energy is available,
but solar panels, wind mills,
these are things that,
you know, 90% if not 99% of the poorest,
will never be able to have a benefit from.
So something from the grassroots,
instead of coming from top down,
something that the population themselves can build.
Second, it must be built by even simple carpentry skills.
And the third one, it must be a business.
This man, Demi Lucas, is only 1 man,
but he has produced 8000 solar bottles,
changing his whole community.
That is the power of simple.
He goes around selling solar bottles.
He makes it for about a dollar
and plus to install it for about...
I mean everything for about a dollar.
It's easy to assemble.
We use people that are unemployed,
and they become the next green jobs,
but in the thousands.
We have covered 20 cities, replicating this.
We're going to hit about 200,000 solar bottles.
What does it mean?
At 10 dollars of savings a month,
you are looking at 2 million
and 24 million in savings for the poorest of the poor.
Something that can be used for nutrition,
for books, for schools and other things that are essential,
that are going into burning electricity.
Simple water as it goes through the bottle,
refracts and lights up a 35 sqm room.
The brighter you want it, the more plastic bottles.
55 Watts, 60 Watts.
Women in stores get to save
and put more inventory to make more money.
The changes are from dark to day,
but it lasts about 10 years.
Once you install it, 1 dollar lasts for 10 years.
And the best thing there is, once you teach them,
they will never go back into darkness.
Bathrooms.
The nice thing with white light
also for people that are working under these dark areas
is the fact that it also reacts with the body
and produces vitamin D, making it healthier.
We start out dark.
People live in these kind of condition,
inhuman sometimes.
But in 10 minutes we brighten their world.
Sometimes we think about the big things right away.
But these are the domain of the few.
But empowering people, something with human hands,
not with trucks, not with multi-millions
but something simple in sense,
not in dollars,
might really be the way to change the world.
Thank you.
(Applause)