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Why do humans have to pay to stay alive? Part 3

Housing

By Tyler MeekPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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On average people pay $9,500 out of an annual $31,000 salary for housing. That’s almost a third. People should have a roof over their head for no price, not for the cost of a third of their working life!

I had a realization recently when I drove by a building in construction. The frame was in place, bright tan wood, shining in the sunlight. As I drove, I was thinking about how much plastic we use in our daily lives and how much sits in landfills for about 450 years before decomposing. Wood-framed houses usually last only 100 years. If wood, which comes from trees that reverse air pollution, decomposes 350 years faster than plastic, why not accomplish two things in one move: make houses from plastic and allow trees to continue their function in nature. According to https://borgenproject.org/houses-made-of-plastic/ the cost could be comparable or less than traditional housing methods.

One example of a house made of plastic

I don’t have all the solutions regarding the intricacies of building a house but the frame could be made from some form of plastic shapes. Plastic is readily available, which means the majority of the house could be collected from household materials. If humans could generate electricity through treadmills or something similar, the power for the production of the house would be provided.

For a house to be assembled, the ground would need to be prepared, the plastic cleaned, melted, and molded, and the pieces assembled. There are many YouTube videos that show people making bricks out of plastic.

I don’t want to make this more complicated than it needs to be: we can currently build a house for free (minus the cost of the equipment) if people are willing to collect the materials and power. In the process, we would be saving 22 grown trees per house frame. Those trees provide the average oxygen/CO2 absorption needs of 18 people for 60 years.

To learn more about these ideas, check out these resources:

Please read my other posts to continue to learn about my dream for the world. Thank you for reading this one!

In order for this story to be published, I need a few more words. Let’s continue our random story (see the end of this article) about Mishta and Alice.

“Alice? Hello in there!” a voice sounded from the entrance to her home.

It was Mishta of course! Did he ever sleep?

“Yes…hello?” she replied.

“Hey! I was wondering if you were free to do something together today? I have lots of ideas and think you will love them. Of course, if you would prefer to sleep that’s fine.”

“I…”

“But I really want to do something together and maybe learn something about you. Oh, and this forest! It is simply breath-taking! So, what do you say? Want to climb out of bed and conquer this forest?”

“Uh…”

“I don’t mean literally! I’m sure you have just as many friends as I do here and none of them need conquering. Come to think of it, no one needs conquering. But I digress. So what do you want to do?”

“How is your sense of smell?” Alice asked.

“It’s fantastic! I can smell cherries, squirrels, rocks, nuts, berries, peanuts, chestnuts, almonds…”

“I can see you really like nuts!”

“Yes,” Mishta replied. “Boy do I ever! Want to find some together?”

“Sure, I…”

“I smelled some on my way over. It’s near the valley. Are you dressed yet?”

“Not…”

“I’m ready if you are! Just come out whenever you’re ready. I know the best route to get there. Going my way, we pass all the dogs and birds.”

“Ok, I’m coming.” Alice finally finished her thought and climbed out of her hole.

habitat
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