Sustainability, Technology, and Surfing Serendipities

This is a house that’ll last 100 years that’s impervious to bacteria, free of maintenance, and to a degree withstand hurricanes and earthquakes

Firewire is probably one of the world’s most successful manufacturers and distributors of mass produced surfboards. Firewire surfboards are both sustainable and capable of high performance. One line of surfboards produced by Firewire is Timbertek, an eco-friendly surfboard.  Timbertek surfboards were shaped and created by Nev Hyman.

Nev Hyman doesn’t stop at eco-friendly surfboards by goes ahead with an initiative known as Nevhouse. Nevhouse is an initiative that uses recycled plastic and other composite material taken off the streets and from landfills to manufacture prefabricated houses, which can, in turn, be transported to any part of the world. Nevhouse opens up new ways to implement sustainability expanding beyond the world of surfing on a global scale. Nevhouse could potentially have a significant positive global impact from a social, environmental, and economic perspective.

As Nev points out, the possibilities are immense. “This is a house that’ll last 100 years that’s impervious to bacteria, free of maintenance, and to a degree withstand hurricanes and earthquakes,” he says.  ”So from this perspective, they are important tools for disaster relief and it can be built and taken down again in just two days. What is more it is culturally relevant to its host nation and community.”

Nevhouse is quickly progressing especially after signing a deal with Lmala Landowners Group from Lihir Island in Papua New Guinea. A factory will be built there in order to carry out Nevhouse’s ideas. From mining gold, the inhabitants of Lihir Island are switching to building with recycled material.

As a social scientist with a focus on sustainability, this presents some really fascinating issues — no primary extraction of resources, instead recycling plastics to provide homes and shelter. “This is only the beginning and we are looking at a plan where in a few years’ time we can have plants built in 100 countries around the world,” Nev says. ”This will respond to the changing nature of demand for plastics on a global scale. Tons of waste is shipped from first to third world countries, particularly China. But now there is a situation where China is putting up what has been called a green wall because they don’t want the waste as much as they did. The commodity price of plastic waste is dropping and there are back logs of waste in first world countries.”

Nevhouse’s contribution of sustainability takes going green onto a whole new level. Reducing waste and recycling have a new meaning. In addition, to revolutionizing the creation of a house, Nevhouse creates an affordable housing solution. To think, saving the environment one affordable house at a time. Take a look at the construction of Nevhouse in the following clip.

To learn more check out Gregory Borne’s post

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