Recycle materials for your house?
If you want to live in a house surrounded by plastic bottles, go ahead and start piling up. This has been done many times. After the devastating earthquake in Haiti, an architect developed a system to build walls of plastic bottles bound with concrete and reinforced with a mesh of recycled material. In most cases though, bottle houses are rare, off-the-grid experiences. However, green home builders report that high-end customers are ordering custom homes whose materials contain a higher percentage of recycled products than homes built with conventional materials. In the Bentley home in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, the walls are insulated with cellulose, a recycled material. The carpet comes from recycled plastic bottles and the tile is made from recycled car windshields. Other recycled materials, such as steel, are also gaining popularity in home construction. A recycled steel house frame requires no more than the material from six scrapp...