Beat the Heat with this DIY Eco-Cooler from Bangladesh

Cleantech doesn’t always mean complicated and expensive innovation. In Bangladesh, people are making their own coolers from plastic bottles and cardboard. This post originally appeared on Global Voices and is published here with permission of the author. You can follow Rezwan on Twitter: @rezwan. Bangladesh has a hot, wet, and humid tropical climate with temperatures rising unto 45 degrees Celsius (113ºF) in the summer. Most of the rural Bangladeshi population lives in corrugated tin huts that can get dangerously hot under the scorching sunlight. Many of the houses do not have electricity to run affordable cooling devices, such as ceiling fans. A new social venture has come up with a simple idea to provide a cheap solution to the problem. Grey Dhaka, the Bangladesh wing of New-York-based advertising agency Grey, and the Grameen Intel Social Business, a social business information technology company created in 2009 by Grameen Trust and Intel, teamed up to create the Eco-Cooler.

This is amazing! Bangladesh’s #EcoCooler that runs w/out electricity could be the answer to rising heat https://t.co/NYUNHGtb5w @YourStoryCo

— Nileena (@nileenags) May 24, 2016

The Eco-Cooler is made of cardboard and used plastic bottles, which are ubiquitous in Bangladesh. Holes are cut in a grid from the cardboard, with plastic bottles fitted into the holes. (The bottoms of the bottles are removed, before this step.) As air rushes into the bottles at the wider part and hits the bottleneck, the air blown into the home cools markedly. The Eco-Cooler can lower the temperature by 5°C (9ºF) in a short time and that can make a difference.

ECO-COOLER:B’Deshi Innovation:Hot air gets into bottle, gets compressed @ neck, making air cooler b4 entering room! pic.twitter.com/mT63WEkf89

— Rasheed Kappan (@kappansky) May 22, 2016

This technology is very simple. Internet users can download the design for free and make an Eco-Cooler at home. The following video explains the process: https://youtu.be/oSbZWNk84F4 Sambeet Chakraborty writes on Facebook:

An amazingly simple idea..making lives better for millions in Bangladesh.

A.R. Mashrur Hasan Mukut says:

Absolutely Brilliant idea!! so easy and simple to execute!! we all should spread this idea out among those who need this !!

The first prototype was installed in March 2015 and it was ready for launch by February 2016. Eco-Coolers have been installed for free in thousands of homes as a part of corporate social responsibility program in villages in Nilphamari, Daulatdia, Paturia, Modonhati, and Khaleya across Bangladesh. The venture is also teaching people how to make these devices and then teach others to do the same.

forget about #startups and #monetization, for a sec, we need the i#deas that can do wonders like this one #ecoCooler https://t.co/NRfWjBSAFa

— Anup Dhirwan (@dhirwan) May 23, 2016

The raw materials are easily available everywhere, and Eco-Coolers can be a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly cooling solution in many countries across the world. There don’t seem to be any independent reviews of how well the eco-cooler works easily available online, but if you’ve built or tested one, let us know.