Some of us can’t live without our coffee, but now one Colombian company is making it possible for us to live in coffee—kind of. Bogota-based Woodpecker is manufacturing a building material made from discarded coffee husks and recycled plastic to construct cheap, prefabricated house kits that snap together. These dwellings can cost as little as $4,500 each. Even better, the lightweight material can easily be transported to remote or rural areas with the aid of modern (a helicopter) or analog (a burro) technology. “Coffee husk was selected because it’s stronger and drier than the other fibers,” Woodpecker’s CEO told Fast Company. Considering that Colombia is one of the biggest coffee producers in the world, the material is extremely easy to come by, too. “We think our houses are an excellent solution for the housing crisis there,” he said, especially as areas are still recovering from last November’s hurricane Iota. “It has been proven already.”
Grist, an award-winning, nonprofit media organization dedicated to highlighting climate solutions and uncovering environmental injustices,…
Every year, California dairy farms emit hundreds of thousands of tons of the potent greenhouse…
Highway 7 runs north-south through western Washington, carving its way through a landscape sparsely dotted…
One of the greatest pleasures I had as a child growing up in the Chicago…
Undocumented immigrants experience food insecurity at much higher rates than other populations, yet they are…
Writer Charlotte Druckman and editor Rebecca Flint Marx are both Jewish journalists living in New…