I would like to start by giving credit where credit is due. The following subject was brought to my attention by a crazed fan of the blog. If you have something you would like to see addressed please email me and we will see if we can pencil it in!
In Taos, New Mexico there is a company called Earthship Biotecture that essentially builds houses made out of garbage. When someone told me about this I thought it was some kind of tasteless joke, but the sad truth is this is all too real. Basically, the idea is to take waste and 'recycle' it in order to cut down on unsightly garbage filling landfills across the world, while at the same providing affordable and attractive housing. There are so many problems with this I almost don't even know where to start.
What is an Earthship, anyway?
When one hears the name 'Earthship' one can only picture a huge spaceship designed to save humanity from a ravaged planet, much like the Axiom from the animated Disney Pixar film Wall-E. Interestingly enough this is quite the opposite. An earthship is a home built using a combination of garbage and dirt. Typically made of old tires filled with dirt and the other recyclable materials this concept combines bad taste along with a complete disregard for Earth and its inhabitants. In a nutshell, Earthship Biotectutre has found an ingenious way to take a pile of trash and magically transform it into a pile of trash you live in.
Who wants to live in a dump?
Other than Oscar the Grouch I can think of nobody that willing chooses to live in a trash heap (except, of course, the customers of Earthship Biotecture). In some ways this is actually offensive to me because there are thousands of homeless people who, through no fault of their own, are forced to live in boxes and dig their food out of dumpsters. Now we have a company that is actually taking money from people in exchange for this unappealing lifestyle. It's almost as if they have glamorized being 'down on one's luck', if you will, and put a hefty price tag on it! Talk about kicking the less fortunate while they're down. This perverse marketing ploy is enough to merit an all-out boycott of this company but let's also look at the practicality of the situation just for good measure.
Helping the Environment?
I don't know about you but I can think of nothing that would help Mother Nature out more than taking a bunch of old tires nobody wants and putting them right in the middle of a suburban neighborhood for a family to raise their children in. Obviously the former sentence is rank with sarcasm, but unfortunately the patrons of this company really believe this to be true. These dwellings are actually quite bad for the environment because of the fact that we are taking garbage that would otherwise be contained in a sole isolated place (a landfill) and basically spreading it all over creation. Another factor to consider is the housing market is so bad right now there are tens of thousands of homes unoccupied and/or being torn down and discarded causing trillions of tons of construction waste every single day, and all the while this 'green' housing scheme is encouraging people to build these 'environmentally friendly' homes. I think even Marjory the wise Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock would consider this concept to be utter foolishness.
The Solution?
