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A promising Alternative- Straw House

Straw Bale an alternative building material meets housing needs and energy efficient goals of most of the developing countries like Nepal.
".... Straw house also can be as a concrete house.. "

Environment is the main component of the earth system. Man’s overuse and abuse of different components of environment is threatening the survival of human beings on the planet. Global warming, increase in pollution, unusual calamities and other tantamount effects are the outcomes of the degradation of component of environment. The life span of living beings is decreasing year after year because of exposure to many harmful chemicals. In the name of sophistication we are degrading the environment to the extent that we could be in very difficult circumstance at any instant. If we continue to carry on with this types of activities and do not take any preventive or control measures we may end in an irreversible situation. So, this is a time to think seriously about protecting the environment and earn mileage and have a good life style in future. It’s time to think for alternative material which are eco-friendly and locally available. Environmental progress concept was started in 1970s and later culminated in the green revolution in 1990 which raised the attention of the need for preservation of environment and the role of human activities for environmental protection. Many developing countries are working for eco-friendly materials and are trying to spread awareness for optimum utilization of locally available materials and eco-friendly materials. In spite of all this there is hardly any noticeable improvement. Developing countries are still struggling to embrace the concept and hence the implementation of eco-friendly material therein has made almost no progress. Developmental activities in developing countries like Nepal, India, Bhutan are getting along at a fast pace. It is believed that growth rate of construction industry in India, covering around 5% of the globe, is around 9.5%. It is worldwide understood that current construction practices in developing world use many non renewable resources resulting in large scale of deforestation whish hardly takes any account of environment protection. It is imperative that construction industry resorts to using the eco-friendly materials in an attempt to protect the environment. Today’s achievement in technology have influence environment in utmost extend. It is obvious; people wish to live in eco-friendly houses making it as a part of environment and their life for clean and green environment ensuring healthy lifestyle. Thought it is a challenging task, and to make it possible with local materials and manpower add up more challenges. Optimum utilization of natural and locally available materials can be the best solution for these challenges. As far as developing countries are concern, the use of technology in ample amount is difficult meanwhile seeing for locally available materials and remolding them as per the requirement can be the genuine way for acquiring eco-friendly house. In this context, choosing the materials which are locally available, which do not have much impact in the environment and which are eco-friendly in nature can be best choice. This also adds up the challenges about the selection of the astute and eco-friendly material. It is quit imperative for the people to choose the right material for the right purposes. The material which is eco-friendly in one place can be expensive and non beneficial in other place. As per the circumstance and places the selection of material is to be done.
If we consider, choosing the brick as a walling material then, today’s research of US based material selection has enlisted it as an uneconomical and non Eco-friendly material. As bricks are extracted from the lime (soil) which is indeed the top layer of the soil. It is expected that to make the soil productive and fertile, it would have taken more than a decade and extracting those material for the construction purposes would not be good as a construction materials. The use of fly brick, cement brick, brick remolded and prefabricated from the dismantle structures can be the best alternative material for eco-friendly walling system. It not only preserve the natural state of the soil but also astute utilization of material which get produced from other mean and has no effect to environment are being utilized. In a developing country like Nepal where agriculture is still the main source of income and production of straw is tremendous. Straw bale construction can be one of the best alternatives as it is renewable resources having tremendous features as cost effective with high health value, Aesthetics value, thermal performance, Fire resistance, light weight and eco-friendly in nature. Present Scenario reflects those straws are either burned or ploughed back to soil leading to the production of harmful gas as carbon forming black cloud which seriously cause chronic chest diseases and also burning fills the air with gaseous and particulate pollutants, and soils generally can’t absorb all the materials as quickly as needed so ploughed back to soil is also not a effective implementation. In this way selecting the material as per need and circumstance can be one of the best alternatives for all kind of people for constructing an economic building with a sustainable material.
Use of natural resources for the fulfillment of our sophistication has ultimate drawback in our environment. Those materials which can’t be regenerated and is very difficult to regenerate must be used wisely. Nowadays, marble and granite flooring has been a fashion as every house embraces this flooring techniques. Meanwhile it is also very crucial to understand that once we extract the marbles and granite from nature, we can’t regenerate it again so better we should seek for some alternative materials as veneer flooring, natural wood flooring and simple architectural flooring would be more beneficial and eco-friendly in nature as well. If we are aware about the material that we are using and its effect in long term then this knowledge helps us in selecting the right material. Less use of VOC (Voltaic Organic Compound) in construction can make us far from different diseases and many future pitfalls. Construction in collaboration with environment aids us to integrate our self with the component of environment. Analyzing and researching before commencing the construction and selecting more eco-friendly material which is sustainable, flexible and economical always help us for Green construction.  

The pace of development and rising need of people is increasing day by day which ultimately has increased the impact on environment. Human activities especially in construction industry impact various components of environment so working in collaboration with environment must be the main motto of today’s world. Use of eco-friendly material is only the mean to get this done.  Straw Bale can be one of the promising building material that meet the overall housing need and energy efficient goal of most of the developing countries like India, Nepal, Bhutan etc where agriculture act as the backbone of development. Nepal also being one of the country for production of straw but most of those is considered as waste and limited are only used for productive type but if we can utilize them for construction in the form of straw bale then staying in good house won’t be limited to dream for people. It aids to maintain the quality of living stander of people because straw house fulfills serviceability and helps to maintain the environmental quality. Straw is getting lots of preference in many countries because of its cost effectiveness with high health value, Aesthetics  value, thermal performance, Fire resistance, light weight and eco-friendly in nature. It also has good response against earthquake so it can be constructed in earthquake prone areas as well. Meanwhile many alternative materials like straw bale is still existing in Nepal, those must be identified, proper research for its application must be done. To make all this possible, Community awareness programs should be conducted to educate people about the resources and energy and the need and advantages of using alternative eco-friendly materials. All the polluting industries should be encouraged to implement green concept to reduce the pollution to save the environment.. Government should encourage implementation of eco-friendly local materials by providing opportunity for subsidies and/or free consultation. Government and Banks should help the poor and middle class people by giving loans and subsidies as they can’t afford the high technology due to cost factors. This approach can be spread by updating the ‘eco-friendly material in construction’ content in their courses right from the primary school level itself. Various program, conference and training workshops must be launched on a regular basis to get best expose to new, innovative materials of our own country

 

The Article is published in The Kathmandu Post, Development Section, National paper of Nepal