An enterprising Gujarati entrepreneur has come up with a novel way to help people keep food cool without needing to plug in an expensive to run refrigerator. His Mitti Cool is a cooler made of clay, which uses the natural cooling effect of water evaporation to do the job.
His fridge has a water compartment on the top and bottom of the unit, which soaks water through the porous clay in order to cool down the contents of the box by up to 8 degrees C. This means that you can keep vegetables fresh for up to a week, and milk fresh for 3 days, which is not bad going really for no power.
The product retails for around $50 (or 2800 rupees) and so far he’s sold several thousand of them, proving that there’s still a demand for good old fashioned technology even in these days of super high tech convenience. Every fridge is made by hand, and the inventor, Mansukhbhai Prajapati, formulated the exact type of clay needed for effective evaporation from several different local variants. Clever man indeed.