Low Cost Housing Made from Loofahs

If you thought all a loofah is good for is exfoliating your butt, think again. The dried vegetable is being used as a renewable, natural building material in impoverished areas of Paraguay thanks to the genius of social activist Elsa Zaldívar.  Elsa realized that not only is the loofah a great cash crop for poor communities to grow, it also makes strong yet lightweight building panels.

From Ecolect:

Working with industrial engineers, Elsa Zaldivar has combined readily available waste from the loofah with plastic waste to form strong, lightweight building panels. The panels can be used to create furniture and construct houses, insulating occupants from temperature and noise. This innovation addresses a real need in Paraguay, as around 300,000 Paraguayan families lack adequate housing. When the panels break or fall apart they can easily be broken down and recycled back into new panels, greatly easing the demand for wood in Paraguay’s over-harvested forests. Because of Elsa’s inspiring work she was awarded a Rolex Award for the creation of a low cost housing material. Rolex is now partially funding her effort and Elsa hopes to provide her sustainable and low cost housing throughout all of Paraguay.

It’s pretty incredible that Elsa was able to combine creating an income stream for these communities, giving them environmentally friendly housing and innovating a new eco-friendly building material all in one project.

Even better, Elsa persuaded local women to grow and process the loofahs using ecological methods that make the products superior to the ones grown on plantations in China (which are the ones you most often see in stores). The main, high quality part of the loofah is made into high-profit cosmetic products while the waste is used to create the building panels.

This is quite an admirable accomplishment – if only more of us could do so much for our communities and the world! Learn more about Elsa’s work at the Rolex Awards website.

Link [Ecolect] + [Rolex Awards]

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