Ecologically Sustainable building materials
Environment and sustainability have taken the center stage in present times, as all governments and citizens have started realizing the importance of sustaining the ecological balance, and ensuring that life is made comfortable on this planet. Buildings consume 40% of our planet’s raw materials and use up 30% of energy available for use. The construction uses up to three million tones of raw materials in a year and generates 20% of the solid waste. This clearly indicates the amount of energy and materials that we spend to sustain the buildings and keep them in a good state. If we want to survive our urban future, there is no option but to build in ways which improve the health of ecosystem. This is where use of eco-friendly raw materials gains importance, as these raw materials not only are advantageous in the fact that they create very less of hazard waste but also healthy in nature and are known to cause nil or very minimal discomfort to living beings.
In response to the voices that have started getting stronger, urging builders to use natural resources against artificial raw materials, the building community has started more usage of such eco-friendly raw materials. It is not that these were never used before. Earlier generations had used these materials to build strong eco-friendly homes that have lasted quite long. But the advent of easier products, which gave the builder better profits, tilted them in favor of using such products. Rampant use of these products have resulted in creation of millions of tones of hazardous waste, something that are non bio-degradable and are lingering on the planet, making life difficult for the present and future generations.
Some very common sustainable materials that have started finding favor with builders, even in the urban areas are clay, sand, rock, bamboo, straw, concrete and even wood. Use of these sustainable materials have resulted in creation of eco-friendly homes, which not only are very healthy to live in but also are very energy friendly and help the citizen reduce energy consumption. For example, homes insulated with clay are very cool inside and require lesser air-conditioning. Sand and stones have been used for constructions from times immemorial. Nowadays they are used to make concrete and along with steel form the strongest combination as far as building construction is concerned.
Wood, bamboo and straw are also used, though these are not very visible in the urban areas. They are cost effective and hence find their application mostly in rural areas. Bamboos are predominantly used in areas that have occurrences of earthquakes. This is because such homes are easy to re build, at the same time, the impact of such homes collapsing does not tend to hurt the inmates, as much as a concrete home does.
Tags: Building, Ecologically, Materials, Sustainable
