LONDON: A radical solution for dealing with old tyres, already underway in the USA, is now being tried out in the UK — building houses with them.

Called “earthships”, the homes currently under construction may not look like a typical residence, but with solar power, own water supply and sewage system the tyre houses could provide a solution to a shortage of low-cost housing crisis.

Tyre-houses are currently being built in Fife, eastern Scotland and outside Brighton, on the south coast of England. When finished inside with plaster and outside with solar tiles and modern facing material they look like ultra-modern homes.

Each earthship requires 2,000 tyres and with 40 million being discarded each year in Britain alone there is enough free building material to construct 20,000 low-cost homes a year, according to Daren Howarth, of the Low Carbon Network, who is in charge of the Brighton project.

“I was both delighted and amazed at the positive attitude of Brighton councillors in giving planning permission,” he said. ”Sometimes there can be prejudice against new ideas but they decided to give us a chance.” Earthships are already a growing movement in the United States where it is possible to rent them as holiday homes to encourage more people to build them.

Estates of hundreds of self-build earthships have been built in New Mexico with names like Dunlopin and Firestone Avenue.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.