Most concerns about climate change and ecological issues are focused on fossil fuel consumption and motorized vehicles. The majority of greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings, not cars and trucks. Traditionally, building construction has been an ecologically costly process. Recent efforts have focused on developing "green" building materials and construction methods.
Problems With Traditional Building Methods
According to the Worldwatch Institute, an independent organization that analyzes critical global issues, one-fourth of the world's wood and one-sixth of its fresh water are used in building construction. This situation will only become worse as the world's population and more people continue to migrate toward cities. The greater demands also will add pressure on increasingly scarce essential resources, especially water.
Eco-Friendly Alternatives to Drywall
Conventional drywall is made up of gypsum, which requires a great deal of heating and several mixing stages to produce. After cement and steel, it is the third-largest producer of greenhouse gases among building materials. In the United States alone, 50 billion square feet of drywall is produced annually, resulting in 200 million tons of carbon monoxide emissions into the atmosphere. A product called EcoRock produces a substance similar to gypsum through a natural chemical reaction, which eliminates several steps in the process and is much more environmentally friendly.
Eco-Friendly Concrete Production
The production of Portland cement, the binding substance in concrete, is responsible for 7 percent to 8 percent of the total greenhouse gases produced by human activity. But fly ash, the residue from coal-fired power plants, can be harnessed to replace at least half the cement used to make concrete. Beyond the environmental benefits, using fly ash decreases the cost of concrete, and produces a higher quality product.
Bamboo as an Eco-Friendly Building Material
Bamboo is increasingly being touted as an environmentally friendly, yet durable building material. Bamboo is lighter than steel and five times stronger than concrete, and can grow several feet per day. This makes it more economical than lumber from trees, which require years to mature. In addition, it absorbs four times as much carbon dioxide as most trees. Bamboo is native to every continent except Europe and Antarctica, so it has lower import costs than hardwoods, which often are harvested and imported from great distances.
Other Eco-Friendly Building Materials
Baled straw and a product called POLLI-brick are among the eco-friendly building materials that are being used more frequently with conventional building materials. Baled straw is produced by stacking and plastering straw left in the fields after the harvest of rice, wheat and other grain crops. Historically, these by-products have been burned, however, baled straw has been demonstrated to be strong, durable and provide excellent insulation. A company called miniWIZ recently debuted the POLLI-brick, made from recycled PET bottles, that can be interlocked to build strictures ranging from fences to roofs to walls. The material is lightweight and offers excellent acoustic and thermal insulation.
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