Ecology  and  Sustainable Development

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The beginning

		The first straw bale building in CIS

In 1995 the International EcoForum has taken place in Kiev under support of ISAR, where ecological NGO’s from Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, USA have taken part. Representatives of BD IAE (Evgeny Shirokov) and Solar Energy International (Louie Saletan) with support of the other organizations from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and ISAR decided to held a practical seminar on transfer of ecotechnology of building houses of straw bales in summer 1996 in a belorussian village for the Chernobyl settlers (Zanaroch). This technology allows to construct very cheap energy saving houses using local natural renewable materials, which correspond to the principles of sustainable development. In august 1996 a week seminar has taken place, in the course of which the first in CIS super heat isolated straw bale house 6 x 12 m in size, with a cost of about $50 per square m, in the village Druzhnaia (150 km north from Minsk) built for the Chernobyl settlers by the German charitable organization «Houses instead of Chernobyl». This organization rendered assistance by building materials.

The book for the seminar

Comparison to analogous buildings constructed with traditional technologies of brick and concrete in the same village shows this building to be much cheaper, simpler, more ecological and warm. The original pessimism caused by analogy with a tale about three pigs, cleared away quickly: except all described above advantages such houses after being stuccoed become highly strength, fire resistant and long-being as their centenarian maintenance experience in USA shows.

The straw bale building   in Zanaroch

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