A Must See Film: "Garbage Warrior"

Plastic Bottle Insulation

While student teaching this winter, I took on the project of building our 1st grade class a greenhouse made out of 2 litre plastic bottles. I had originally come across similar projects being done by classrooms in the U.K. and thought this would be a great way to teach the kids a number of valuable lessons involving energy, sustainability, recycling....not to mention growing plants. While gathering the 1700 bottles needed for this project, the thought occurred to me that some combination of bottles and sheet plastic would probably make an excellent insulation for under the floor of the sauna house. Years ago I spent a summer outside of Telluride, Colorado working on a Mike Reynolds earthship house and I remember using a combination of aluminum cans and mortar to make up the walls joining the top of the rammed earth tire walls with the ceiling. Trapped air, after all, is one of the most effective (and cheapest)insulation barriers. I've since discovered scientific support for using plastic bottle insulation from a study coming out of the mountains of Nepal. The study was commissioned in response to the problem villages in this region were having with being overwhelmed by huge amounts of non-degradable plastic brought in by Trekkers. The study examined the insulation value of a full range of plastic products and determined that in fact plastic bottles and other products offer excellent insulation properties and would be an excellent insulation for the walls and floors of the villagers' homes and barns. So with the building of my Sauna floor coming up next week, off to the dump I go.

Why Recycled?

Ok, "Why Recycled?" Well the first obvious answer is that I am poor. Very Poor. Many events have transpired in my life over the last few years that have created this condition. These include among many things the implosion of a world economy and the birth of my two kids, Jack and Hazel. For the last fifteen years, I had been a full time potter, but these two events moved me to seek the shelter and stability of a teaching position. I'm now in the final phase of getting my Masters in Elementary education and am currently a student teacher in a local 1st grade class. So, yes, I am very poor. If there is going to be a sauna in my life it will take much resourcefulness as I will have no money to throw at the project.

But poor or not, recycling is fun!!! When money is no object and building something becomes simply a matter of drawing up plans and heading down to Lowes, you not only join consumer culture but you also deprive yourself of so much pleasure. It's huge fun to come up with creative designs that utilize free materials. It takes a little more thought and time, but the journey becomes the joy. In future posts I'll be talking about specific design elements which both utilize free materials AND achieve the aesthetics I wish for in my building.

The Recycled Sauna

During the winter of 2009, I became inspired to take on the project of building a sauna out of mostly recycled materials, materials located right on my property, or materials that people would be willing to donate to the project. Like a lot of people around the world, we were having one of the coldest winters in recent memories and I became obsessed with how comforting a sauna would be to me and my family in the years to come. Our winters in the mountains of North Carolina are typically mild compared to northern states, however, our house happens to be in a shaded mountain microclimate that gives us winters more like what you'd find in Vermont than anywhere in Dixie. We definitely live in prime sauna country.