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Recycled Cola Bottles Could Be The Future Of Street Lights

Recycled Cola Bottles Could Be The Future Of Street Lights

Recycled Cola Bottles Could Be The Future Of Street Lights

Following an international study conducted by Nottingham Trent University, we can expect to see on the market soon, super sustainable lights made from recycled cola bottles. In Collaboration with Spanish SME Ona Product SL, researchers have now developed a new lighting system which is housed in a casing made from recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate), a material which is commonly used for soft drinks bottles.

The design is new to the market and will consume around 7 times less energy than traditional incandescent lights, by using ultra low watt LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes). The product will initially be manufactured by Ona Product SL for commercial and domestic purposes, but there has been talk about it being used for street lighting as well. The research team took the approach of using recycled PET for its casing, amounting to 80% of materials used in the product, as previous results showed it had a lower impact on the environment than aluminium. The material was found to be a good conductor light as well as being able to comfortably withstand the heat emitted by the LEDs.

Head of ADMEC (Advanced Design and Manufacturing Engineering Centre) of the university’s School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment, Professor Daizhong Su , who led the research said: “As lighting accounts for approximately half of the electricity consumed in European cities, and as the manufacture of lights can have a negative impact on the environment, it’s very important that we design the lights of tomorrow to be as sustainable as possible. We were determined to raise the bar and create a new range of lighting with a very low environmental impact and found that PET, because it is so widely recycled and because of its optical, thermal and UV properties, was the ideal material in which to house LEDs.”

Each light will typically be manufactured with three watt LEDs which each have a recycled highly-conductive aluminium heat sink to help diffuse the heat which has been produced. The product also features an energy efficient electronic driver and dimmer, which contain no toxic materials with all the wiring being made from recyclable copper and PET. It has been specially designed to be easily repaired and updated, and when the product has reached the end of its lifecycle it can then be dismantled quickly in order to help encourage its parts to be recycled.

Jose Casamayor, a research fellow at ADMEC who conducted the research in collaboration with Ona Product SL, said: “We have developed a high-quality recycled lighting product within the commercial and economic constraints of the market. Hopefully it will allow Ona to promote sustainable products in its catalogue and create new markets for the company. It shows just how green electrical lights can be and we’re very keen to see it available on the open market in the very near future.”