Solar bottle

This years Index awards include `solar bottle'.

One sixth of the world's population has no access to safe drinking water, increasing their risk of waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, cholera, typhoid fever, Hepatitis A and dysentery.When attending an exhibition under the theme “H2O” at Milan's International Furniture Fair, Designers Alberto Meda and Francisco Gomez Paz learned about the SODIS system, a simple, low-cost solution for treating drinking water at a household level. Contaminated water is filled into transparent plastic bottles. When exposed to full sunlight for six hours, the pathogens in the water are destroyed.

Meda and Paz decided to design a container that brings the best out of the SODIS system, and the result is Solar Bottle, which has one transparent face for UV-A + infrared rays collection and one aluminium color to increase the reflections. The high ratio surface/thickness of the low cost four liter container improves the performance of solar disinfection and its flat shape makes it stackable and facilitates storage. A handle makes it possible to regulate the angle for best solar exposition and ensures easy transportation.