Green MP Caroline Lucas believes that a house made entirely from waste products should become a mainstream idea.
On a visit to the Waste House at the University of Brighton in her constituency, she saw a house made of 20,000 old toothbrushes, two tonnes of denim jeans, 4,000 video cassettes, 2,000 used carpet tiles, thrown away timber, paper, plastic bags and chalk.
Caroline Lucas MP said: “The housing industry is decades behind where best practice is and I think the real challenge of this Waste House is for it not to be seen as a one off example, but actually to be paving the way in what has to be mainstream.
“This is the way we are going to have to build in the future if we are serious about living within the resources of one planet earth.
“The housing industry has a huge amount to catch up on. For every five houses currently being built, enough waste is created to build one extra house. Most people understand that this makes absolutely no sense at all. The housing industry has got to get its act together.
“The university’s research associated with this Waste House is incredibly important because it demonstrates empirically how waste can be reused and recycled. It demonstrates that these is no such thing as rubbish, just things in the wrong place.”
She was shown around the house by Duncan Baker-Brown (pictured with Caroline Lucas), who is a university lecturer and the architect for the Waste House. He worked with Mears Group, which with undergraduate students, City College Brighton & Hove students, Freegle UK, private companies and volunteers built the house in the grounds of the university’s Grand Parade campus in Brighton.
The house is being used to teach sustainability, and also as an example of how waste materials can be incorporated into house building.
