Sustainability & Green Materials Proposed to Rebuild Haiti

International talks on Haiti, which opened on Monday in Montreal, will focus on the “critical first steps” in rebuilding the earthquake-ravaged country, while Global Green USA and Green Cross are offering their expertise (used after Hurricane Katrina and the Victorian bushfires) to create partnerships to help sustainably rebuild Haiti’s devastated homes, schools and communities. Civil and environmental professor Yan Xiao is suggesting bamboo as a suitable and sustainable building material for Haiti.
Mara Bun, CEO of Green Cross in Australia, which developed the Build It Back Green programme after the devastating Victoria bush fires a year ago, welcomes the move to by its US partner organisation to drive a sustainable rebuilding programme for Haiti. Any funds donated in Australia through Green Cross will be dedicated to helping create healthier, energy efficient, disaster resistant housing, schools and other structures, which are appropriate for Haiti.

Here’s the word from Global Green USA President Matt Petersen, Green Cross’ partner organisation in the United States:

The response of American citizens, the US government, and individuals around the world is of course heartening, but does not replace the unfathomable loss of human lives and property. In any disaster, we must find a silver lining to give some small solace to such unbelievable tragedy.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I put forth a plan two weeks after the tragedy to do just that. Today, Global Green’s leadership in the green rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina has served both as a catalyst and has assisted directly in rebuilding schools and homes to be green.

As TIME Magazine stated in an article last year, “No organization is doing more to green New Orleans than Global Green USA…”. This has included our Holy Cross Project as well as providing technical expertise and financial assistance to the New Orleans schools, housing groups, and even city and state agencies, leveraging the $10 million we have raised and deployed to date to impact hundreds of millions in reconstruction.

Now, we plan to take several of the lessons we learned in New Orleans as the international community sets out to rebuild Haiti. Our goal is help create a more sustainable Haiti, with energy efficient, healthy, disaster resistant buildings that makes the nation more resilient to future electricity shortages, public health crises, and disasters.

There is much more than needs to be done — including reforestation — to help Haiti to recover, but we will provide our assistance, experience and resources to create better schools and homes, as well as infrastructure.

There are many critical, important organizations working on the immediate emergency relief efforts that continue to need everyone’s support. As we work on the rebuilding of Haiti with other organizations, we will also help supplement aid efforts — helping to provide solar flashlights and other ‘sustainable’ aid for lighting and water purification that can assist in the long recovery from this humanitarian crisis.  

Source: www.greencrossaustralia.org and www.globalgreen.org
Strong Green Reconstruction for Haiti 

By Alyssa Danigelis for Discovery News (19 January 2010):

The overwhelming destruction in Haiti reminds one engineer of the shoddy buildings that collapsed during the massive 2008 quake in Sichuan, China. For him, it’s not too early to think about sustainable reconstruction.

Civil and environmental professor Yan Xiao at the University of Southern California is known for creating GluBam, a pressed composite made from bamboo that’s incredibly strong and costs less than imported lumber. I had written about his demonstration bamboo houses before and sought his thoughts on Haiti.

“From the pictures, it seems they use quite a lot of masonry buildings and concrete with little reinforcement, these are all known killers in [an] earthquake,” Xiao responded. “I am now contacting various organizations to see if we can get some supports to manufacture and send some bamboo shelters to the country.” He indicated that he isn’t sure how much bamboo is available there yet.

There are a few bamboo crops. Last summer, USAID described a project that brought two hundred bamboo plants in 12 varieties from Hawaii to Haiti The plants did better in Haiti than in Hawaii: within four months, more than 40,000 plants had flourished from the original ones. Since the crops were spread around the country, I imagine that some survived.

Realistically, the rebuilding effort could take at least 10 years, Stanford environmental engineering professor and earthquake expert Anne Kiremidjian recently told CNN. She pointed to the need for a seismic building code, training in design and construction practices, and reinforced joints between beams and columns.

Reconfigured shipping containers might be a short-term solution. Clemson University researchers have been working on a method to convert them into emergency housing that’s both sturdy and stable. On Sunday, Doctors Without Borders reported that one of their medical teams performed operations in a converted shipping container. (Their giant inflatable hospital arrived in Port-au-Prince over the weekend after being delayed by congestion at Haiti’s beleaguered airport.)

Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity laid out a detailed, public, and collaborative reconstruction plan for Haiti on Sunday. In it he writes, “[W]e are not just building a roof over someone’s head–we are building equity.”

Source: www.news.discovery.com