Garbage housing

by Martin Pawley

It is a paradox of the energy crisis – and a sign of our helplessness in dealing with it – that while the world shortage of resources continues to fuel a seemingly uncontrollable inflation, we are still wasting billions of pounds every year on disposable packaging for everything from beer to motor cars. The main reason for this is that despite the well-meaning efforts of those who urge that we should scale down the rate of consumption of our resources, any solution which implies a drop in our standard of living is not likely to be acceptable to those whose image of the good life is that of the consumer society – and that means all of us.

In this important and thought-provoking book Martin Pawley outlines a new and much more realistic approach. Why not, he argues, work with the tide instead of against it? Let us go on consuming; but let us, with the help of advertisers and growth-orientated industrialists encourage the concept of secondary use, particularly of packaging materials. Taking the example of Heineken’s World Bottle, designed in a shape that makes it possible to use jettisoned bottles as building bricks, he shows how a whole range of valuable materials which are at present simply wasted could be designed in a way to provide further use; and in doing so create what would in effect become an enormous world resource. The author has applied his ideas particularly to the building field because it is in the sphere of housing that the inflationary effects of the world shortage of materials is likely to have the most critical social consequences. But his notion is a revolutionary one which has profound implications across the whole spectrum of consumer goods, and it will provoke widespread discussion among economists, designers and in industry as a whole.

120 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975