Recycled PET bottles illuminate a sustainable future

Super-sustainable lights made from recycled drinks bottles will soon go on the market following an international study led by Nottingham Trent University.

In collaboration with Spanish SME, Ona Product SL, researchers have developed a new lighting system that is housed in a recycled PET casing.

The design is new to the market and uses ultra-low watt light emitting diodes (LEDs), which consume about seven times less energy than traditional incandescent lights.

The product will be manufactured by Ona Product SL initially for domestic and commercial purposes, but there are ambitions for it to be used for street lighting as well.

The research team used recycled PET for its casing – which it says amounts to 80 percent of the materials used in the product - as tests showed it has a lower environmental impact than aluminium. The material was also found to withstand the heat emitted by LEDs comfortably and conduct light well.

“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,” commented Professor Daizhong Su, Head of Advanced Design and Manufacturing Engineering Centre (ADMEC) of the University’s School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment, who led the research.

The product will be sold initially in Sweden from the summer and is expected to be rolled out to other Scandinavian countries with short daylight hours in the near future, before the rest of Europe.