by Rachel Preston Prinz and Carrie Christopher
Just because it is organic in form does not mean it is
natural.
The Earthship literature states that 45% of a typical
Earthship is made from recyclable materials. That means; a) that 45% of the
materials used are removed from the recycling stream where they would be used
until they cannot be used anymore, and; b) that 55% of what constitutes the
Earthship is virgin material, which must be harvested, mined, manufactured,
and/or transported to the site.
Only the soil used in the berm and the earth plasters, framing, and vigas are
natural. The roofing, thermal protection and rigid insulation, gutters and downspouts, EPDM, aluminum cans, plumbing, wiring, glass bottles, tires, cisterns, cooling tubes, tools, concrete, glazing for two walls of windows, window shades, glass doors, appliances, rebar, and the mechanical and plumbing system are not natural. Of these,
the concrete, plumbing, and windows can amount to twice the number of those
materials used in a traditional stick-built home.
Looking at the natural angle a bit deeper, the modern Earthship
relies heavily on the use of concrete, which has been documented as
contributing between 5% and 10% of the world's greenhouse gases. Concrete also removes oxygen from the air we breathe as
it cures over its life. This can be a real issue if we have breathing issues or
allergies.
In some ways, Earthships are even more polluting than other
building types. They introduce toxins to oftentimes virgin land, are generally junkyards
during construction, and they remove materials from the recycling stream.
We have to be careful in how we talk about the Earthships,
or any other building type. Using wishful thinking, passing on legends that are
not true, and using buzzwords people have an emotional reaction to in order to
trigger a belief that these buildings are recycled and natural… does not lead
to better or more sustainable design. It does, however, lead to frustration for
would-be builders.
The Myth of Earthships and Recycling
by Rachel Preston Prinz, Pratik Zaveri,
Asha Stout, and Carrie Christopher
Asha Stout, and Carrie Christopher
Nature operates on the principles of zero waste. Trees make flowers and fruit
in order to germinate and grow new versions of themselves and keep growing.
Excesses of flowers and fruits are consumed by other species - they fall on the
ground, decompose, feed various organisms and microorganisms, and enrich the
soil. Animals and insects exhale
carbon dioxide, which plants take in and use for their own growth, and then
the plants release oxygen which helps us and the animals and insects with our
own survival. Nitrogen from plant waste is transformed into protein by
microorganisms, animals, and other plants. This continuous cycle is a symbiotic
relationship: they feed us and we feed them.
The Earth's major nutrients—carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and
nitrogen—are CYCLED and, then, once they are used and discarded to be used
again, RECYCLED. Industry altered the natural equilibrium of the planet. We
took substances from the Earth's crust and concentrated, altered, and
synthesized them into vast quantities of modified materials that cannot safely
be returned to the soil or to the earth’s original biological cycle
because they are no longer made up of the primary constituents of life. We have
to think of another way to make use of these used materials.
So when we want to talk about true sustainability, we begin
with the familiar “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” philosophy. First, we REDUCE our use
of materials insofar as we are able. Some people would say that having an
exterior and interior window wall, as is common in the newest Earthships, is a
violation of the REDUCE principle. These walls are not necessary. You can have the greenhouse via other means - like a stand-alone
greenhouse that can be built of all recycled or reused materials. Another way
we can reduce our footprint is to literally reduce our footprint. The
Phoenix Earthship, for instance, has a total area of about 5,400 square feet,
of which about half is unusable because the space is devoted to greenhouse and
mechanical rooms. A 5,400 SF house is not sustainable,
especially when only half of it is usable. Is it really necessary? Well, that
is up to you.
RECYCLING is the process where used materials are
remanufactured into new products by taking the material, breaking it down, and
then using its raw ingredients to build something new. This prevents the waste of useful materials, reduces the consumption
of virgin materials, lowers energy use, decreases air and water pollution, and
lowers gas emissions.
Downcycling
converts used materials into products of lesser quality and reduced
functionality. Making rags from old clothes and using cardboard boxes as
packing or insulating material are examples of downcycling.
Upcycling, or
returning the used materials into original raw form and reworking them into new
forms, is what happens when we recycle aluminum and glass. Aluminum is melted
down and made into new cans, saving over 90% of the
energy required to make new ones from scratch. Glass works in the same way.
This cycle can continue in perpetuity. Upcycling reduces the amount of waste that we produce and reduces the need for new
virgin material to be mined, fabricated, or harvested. In the case of plastic,
this means fewer oil wells drilled. For metals, fewer mountains mined. For
paper, fewer trees felled. All around, this means less expended,
or embodied, energy. The goal of upcycling is to prevent wasting potentially
useful materials by making use of existing ones.
REUSE takes a used item and reuses it, rather than putting
it into the waste stream.
This helps in exploiting the full potential of a material before it is
discarded. So, as in the case of the tires, bottles, and cans used in Earthships, we are REUSING them, not
recycling them, because we use the intact item as filler for the walls. None of those materials are
going back into the production cycle; they are just making the recycling chain
longer.
