10 Amazing Recycled Building Materials

Today, the use of recycled materials as building materials is rapidly growing. Although, the structural issues should be taken into consideration, using these kinds of materials for constructing building seems to be quite acceptable. There are a lot of examples of using recycled materials in building construction. Here I want to introduce some of them with some examples.

There is a Buddhist temple in Thailand that is made of almost one million beer bottles. This temple can be a proof that we can use recycled and reclaimed materials beautifully in building construction. Also, it reminds us the huge amount of waste that we produce in our daily life. Because of their translucency and ability to hold thermal mass, glass bottles are also often used in cob building to enhance natural daylighting for a stained glass effect.

Here is a grain silo that is purchased and moved to create an unusual circular home. We can use silos for constructing a quick environmentally friendly home. They also have the potential for being used in durable inexpensive pre-fabricated housing. Besides, they look so luxurious, too.

We also can use aluminum cans as small bricks in Earthship buildings, stacked and mortared with lime on earth. When John Milkovisch retired, he got bored – but he didn’t turn to golf for entertainment. He began adding ‘aluminum siding’ to his Houston, Texas home in the form of flattened beer cans “for both practical and decorative reasons”, he says on his website. The house is now covered in 50,000 cans.

There are some examples of using shipping containers in building construction. Some creative designers turn these usual rectangular boxes into considerably beautiful buildings, apartments, offices, etc. Shipping containers can be stacked with crane and build up a building. Also, they are really easy to transport from one place to another one.

Every day, thousands of tires are being thrown away. As I mentioned in my previous blog, we can use tires as building components in earthship structures. Packed with rammed soil, tires can provide an incredibly solid building material. Also, they can absorb heat in winter and keep the building cool in summertime. (for more information, read my previous blog)

Some people recycle boats that are no more seaworthy. Huge ships like the Great Lakes Shipping Boat (top), now known as the ship residence on an island in Lake Erie at Put-in-Bay, Ohio, make incredible seaside mansions that are quite a sight when seen from the water.

Can we use wood pallets as building materials, too?! The answer is yes. As they are plentiful and thrown away every day and also we can easily nail them together, we can use them to build some small buildings. And while they may not be a great load-bearing material for anything other than a shed, they do make a fantastic addition to building exteriors to filter sunlight.

A cardboard building may sound like the most temporary of structures – something you expect to find in a shantytown, not a suburban neighborhood. That it is, but imagine how such a material could be put to use for inexpensive emergency shelters that set up ultra-fast. Architects Stutchbury and Pape developed a $35,000 flat-packed prefab cardboard house made from 100% recycled materials with a waterproof outer membrane made of HDPE plastic.

Surrounded by industrial scrap metal every day for years, a former scrapyard owner saw a lot of potential for reuse – and put those ideas to work in his own home, a modern metal masterpiece 90 minutes northwest of Toronto. A rusted metal gate made from an old truck chassis, old galvanized steel siding and I-beams rescued from a demolition job are just a few elements of the mostly recycled home. And what will happen to this recycled home when it’s finally due to be demolished?
“With most houses, when they’re torn down, everything goes into a bin,” homeowner S. J. Sherbanuk told Dwell. “When this house gets pulled down 60 or 80 years from now, they won’t even need a bin. It’s all gonna get reused.”

As the last one, here is a 727 Fuselage Home at the Costa Verde resort in Costa Rica, a two-bedroom suite made from a refurbished vintage 1965 Boeing 727 airframe. Retired from its former hectic life as part of South Africa Air’s fleet, the salvaged airplane serves as a cozy and unique lodging perched atop a 50-foot pedestal for the feel of being in the air.