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Denise Bester: Rubbish good for building your house

Tuesday, July 07, 2009
People have been building dwellings for over 14,000 years, largely using materials accessible in their immediate environments. Whether that be wood, stone, clay, reeds, or ice, the practice has always been to use what's available and abundant.

It's only since the advent of modern industry and mass production that we have been using products that are mass produced, and then transported over often vast distances to reach our doorsteps.

Cement, the key ingredient in concrete, is highly energy intensive. According to the international Cement Sustainability Institute, it accounts for around 5 per cent of global human-induced emissions of carbon dioxide, as well as affecting a wide range of sustainability issues, including emissions to air and water, natural resource depletion and worker health and safety.

Well, what choice do we have these days? At least in our urban environments, there aren't really any abundantly occurring building products available. Or are there?

We do have one thing in excess. Every week our wheelie bins hit the kerbside overflowing with rubbish and recycling. Tonnes and tonnes of domestic and industrial waste heads to our landfill and recycling dump sites. And with the downturn in the global economy, the usual buyers of significant portions of our recycling in Southeast Asia are demanding less.

So, we have found our abundantly occurring product, but can we use it for building? Well, there are some people out there who think we can.

At the University of Nottingham in Britain, Dr John Forth and Dr Salah Zoorob have invented a building block made almost entirely of recycled glass, metal slag, sewage sludge, incinerator ash, and pulverised fuel ash from power stations. According to Dr Forth, this eco-friendly 'Bitublock' consists of up to 100 per cent recycled materials, and uses less energy to manufacture than a concrete block. It's about six times as strong, which makes it a high-performance product. Dr Forth hopes the Bitublock will completely replace energy-intensive concrete as a structural material.

Then there's the sustainable architecture maverick, Michael Reynolds, otherwise known as the "Garbage Warrior". He has been experimenting with waste-building for over 30 years in the US. His "earthship" prototype building uses recycled automobile tyres filled with compacted earth as the major structural component. It also uses glass or plastic bottles, and aluminium cans as bricks, making for strong and easily constructed walls. One of the earthship principles is that truly sustainable homes should have low technology and skill requirements to construct, meaning the layperson can assemble their own home with minimal training. The result is houses that are very energy efficient, durable, and easy to build.

It makes sense to turn our waste products into valuable resources, and change something that we don't want - trash - into something that we do want - beautiful and sustainable homes. The ideas are out there, and they're certainly food for thought.
Further reading/info: http://earthship.co.nz/
 
 

Your comments:

by Anonymous 14 Jul 09, 6 replies : Last Post Sort by:
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Anonymous
3350 posts
Rubbish good for building your house 
Posted 14 Jul 09 10:25 AM
Has anyone used a roofing material made from recycled tires. Seems a good idea rather than having them dumped in the landfill. Or is NZ just too small an economy for this sort of business enterprise.

Cheers
Mike

http://roofrepairs.co.nz/rubber-roofing/beauty-meets-durability-with-rubber-roof-shingles/

http://www.roofery.com/shingles/shingles-made-from-recyled-tires.html
parkes auto
1 posts
Re: Rubbish good for building your house 
Posted 30 Aug 09 11:47 AM
Hi Mike,

I have done quite a bit of research into uses for old tires in NZ as we own an automotive workshop.. www.parkesautomotive.co.nz ..and have tried to reduce our impact on the environment as much as we can in an industry not known to be environmentally friendly. There seems to have been a few failed attempts to set up rubber chipping plants which is what they have a lot of in the states. The biggest downfalls were transport costs and NZ not having the quantity to make it work.There was also the room needed to put them all. I know that there are some people chipping tyres on a small scale with a mobile unit but a lot of it still ends up in landfill.This process is just reducing the room that it takes up and air pockets that tyres cause if side walls are not taken out. I would like to hear from anyone that has business ideas that we could make work in NZ.

Regards
Anita
Anonymous
3350 posts
Re: Rubbish good for building your house 
Posted 20 Sep 09 10:04 PM
Simple
Govt makes it illegal to dump tires in any land fill
Govt puts a tire drop off point in major cities
Govt ships all tires to a central Govt owned chipping plant
Private industry can now have access to the chips for a small fee
Anonymous
3350 posts
Re: Rubbish good for building your house 
Posted 22 Sep 09 7:50 AM
has anyone watched "garbage warrior"? i would like to make this work in new zealand
Anonymous
3350 posts
Re: Rubbish good for building your house 
Posted 22 Sep 09 7:51 AM
anita watch garbage warrior and see if it can stir interest. he compacts dirt into whole tires and makes building walls out of them! amazing structures
Anonymous
3350 posts
Re: Rubbish good for building your house 
Posted 17 Nov 09 7:53 PM
Where can I buy tire chippings to put in my boxing bag?
samiam
108 posts
Re: Rubbish good for building your house 
Posted 18 Nov 09 9:27 AM
Simple...a minor adjustment....
New tyres are surcharged $10 each, bring your old tyres back (to the right place) for a $10 refund. Problem solved, those tyres can stockpile untill there are sufficient for the mobile chipper to do it's rounds.
How many uses are there for tyre chippings?
Boxing bag fill is one I would never have thought of!
 

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