The Grass Roof Company - using Waste wool and straw, tyres, concrete and ceramics

SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS
Waste wool and straw, tyres, concrete and ceramics

Straw is a fantastic low energy highly insulating building material, we hope to use it more in our future work.

Tyres are a huge problem, no-one knows what to do with them all. We always try to design them in to as many schemes as we can.

Brown field sites can be very important for wildlife, especially invertebrates. Many of these sites will be lost to the Thames Gateway Development. Using crushed concrete in our work, we hope to highlight this problem and provide some 'mini brown field sites'.

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We added this fence section to an Eco-Garden at a local School. It gives the kids a chance to appreciate the texture of this natural material and provides good nesting materials for the birds.	Here we have used straw bales to construct the end wall of this green roof garage. Straw from the local farm was used and then covered with a lime render, a Perspex panel was left to allow the straw to be seen.	Recycled tyres can be easily used to create raised beds.	Recycled tyres form part of a retaining wall made up entirely of reclaimed materials.


Since using crushed concrete/brick rubble as a substrate on roofs we have tried the materials as a mulch and a wall infill.	We think crushed concrete gives an interesting backdrop to natural/prairie planting as well as providing an important habitat.	We are trialling crushed ceramics (smashed up toilet bowls and sinks) mixed with green waste compost on the roofs of the last couple of outdoor classrooms.	Using crushed ceramics as a mulch in this community garden.