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Building House from Waste

DUBAI - Elsa Zalvidar came up with a solution to save Paraguay’s rapidly diminishing virgin forests by putting together leftover pieces of a vegetable sponge and other vegetable waste along with recycled plastic to make strong, lightweight panels that could easily be assembled into simple structures, including houses.

Elsa is the social communicator and consultant on rural development and executive director of Base Education, Communication and Tecnologia Alternativa. She introduced a prototype housing facility by using simple materials like Loofah (vegetable wastes) and leftover plastic to construct panels to build houses for people living in the rural areas of Paraguay.

Forest areas in Paraguay are fast diminishing, and usage of these panels would stop deforestation in the rural areas, she said. Elsa told Khaleej Times that two prototypes houses had already been made and her reward from Rolex Enterprise Award will help constructing these houses all over Paraguay.

“The inspiration for a housing facility came to me from the rural women of Paraguay. They start working at a very young age, and 30 per cent of these women sustain the entire family. I have great respect for them and I want to help these women.” 


dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com

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