Straw bale One of the fastest growing alternative building materials is the straw bale. There are at least half a dozen existing in the Methow already, with several more planned for this coming building season. The benefits of straw bale construction are many. It is sustainable, taking less than one year to grow another crop ready for use. It is considered a waste product in many places - more than 200 million tons of straw goes unused in the United States annually.
Straw bales are also fire resistant.
The biggest hurdle with a straw bale structure may be otaining financing and insurance, but this is becoming easier as more and more straw bale structures go up. Permitting as well, is getting easier. Earthships Twenty-five years ago, architect Michael Reynolds of Taos, New Mexico designed a home for his family that utilized hundreds of old tires, each packed with about 300 pounds of dirt. By laying these tire-encased rammed earth bricks as load bearing walls, then covering the whole wall structure with adobe, he created a revolutionary architectural genre called the earthship. And in the process of doing this, each earthship can remove from society's wastestream, hundreds of tires and thousands of aluminum cans.