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" Should you use your old VHS collection to insulate your home? Researchers at the U.K.&amp;#039;s University to Brighton are about to find out. They&amp;#039;ve created a &amp;quot;Waste House&amp;quot;\u2014a building made of 85 percent trash. The house is partially constructed from discarded traditional home building materials such as plywood and bricks, but the project also uses materials you might not typically associate with building a house.  You know those vinyl banners people hang from light posts to advertise a local fair or event? It turns out they work as vapor control layers, something traditionally added to homes to control condensation and make homes more energy efficient. (Think of Dupont&amp;#039;s Tyvek home wrap.) Bicycle inner tubes work as window sealants, and and if you mix together chalk waste and clay you have a great replacement for drywall. For insulation, the researchers are using old VHS tapes (4,000 of them), floppy disks, and DVDs, as well as everyday items like plastic razors and denim jeans\u2014all previously destined for the landfill. Also making an appearance as insulation: 20,000 toothbrushes used by first-class airline passengers and then discarded. Small clear parts of the wall offer a glimpse of what&amp;#039;s inside. The goal of the project is to &amp;quot;prove that fluffy, crumbly, and organic low-carbon materials can compete effectively with their more established high-energy, high-carbon counterparts,&amp;quot; the researchers say on their site. It&amp;#039;s a living laboratory of sorts that could yield new advancements in more eco-friendly architectural design.       This project is based a similar endeavor by Duncan Baker-Brown, an architect and architectural researcher at the university. In 2008, created a prefabricated house using eco-friendly materials. This project goes a step further by using discarded materials. It also goes beyond just the university. For example, the Mears Group, a local construction firm, has students getting hand-on experience in building the home. They&amp;#039;ve even created some home furnishings by repurposing trash. The Waste House officially opened its doors for the public to visit last month. Ultimately it will be an exhibition and workshop space for community groups and students, and will serve as the headquarters for the university&amp;#039;s sustainable design program. Over time, the group will monitor all of the unique insulation choices to determine which, if any, could be used in future construction. Whether or not they&amp;#039;ll make any more homes out of home movies and mom jeans remains to be seen. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a10947/waste-house-uses-vhs-tapes-and-mom-jeans-as-insulation-16972165/>