3 Extreme Ways To Go Green

Written by Earthship Biotecture

This article was written by Maggie Koerth-Baker, and appears in the March-April 2008 issue of mental_floss magazine.

Recycle, schmecycle. These days, saving the Earth requires a lot more than just collecting cans.

1. Build Your House Out of Tires

Two decades ago, architect Michael Reynolds realized that a tree-hugging utopia would never be possible if homes weren’t inexpensive, easy to build, and environmentally friendly. His solution? The Earthship.

Earthships are built out of used tires that have been packed with dirt and then stacked in a brick-style pattern. Construction is almost obscenely simple, though time-consuming. It can take as long as half an hour to properly pack each tire. But what you lose in free time, you make up for in energy savings. Earthship walls absorb heat quickly and release it slowly, allowing the houses to maintain a natural temperature of around 60 degrees. They also use filtration systems to collect and recycle water so that, even in desert conditions, it doesn’t need to be pumped in. [Images courtesy of Nicaragua Real Estate News.]

While living in an Earthship may take more work than living in a split-level in the suburbs, the eco-friendly homes have become surprisingly popular. Several Earthship subdivisions have opened up in the past few years, including the Greater World Earthship Community near Taos, New Mexico, which was founded in 1994. Greater World residents build their own homes and, in an interesting twist on subdivision bylaws, are expressly forbidden from hooking up to public utilities or digging wells on their land. Here are photos of a few Greater World Earthships: