12th August 2010 - Our stay in Sweden did not go unnoticed. On 7th of August 2010 an article appeared in the local newspaper Dala Demokraten about the Earthship and our visit. Jonas made a translation into English of the online article which you can read here.
In Skattungbyn there is a passive house growing with the help of a couple thousand tires, tons of sand and almost countless hours of work. Earthship Construction has now attracted interest also from other countries. Volunteers have come from Belgium and the Netherlands to help. - Now it starts to happen. It feels absolutely fantastic! says builder Jonas Erlandsson.
Earthship is built by recycled materials, such as tires, and local building materials, like sand. The house will become self-sufficient in heat and water. In a few years Jonas builder hopes that he, his partner Elin Nordquist and their son Elvis can move into the vessel. But there is still more manual labor needed, even if it happened a lot this past week because of the group earthship enthusiasts came to help.
But why travel to another country to work hard without a sallery?
Well, Willy Raets and Daan Dessers from Earthship Belgium says that it's obvious to support someone who wants to create a home that does not disrupt the natural cycle. In addition, there are not many known earthship projects in Europe, and national environmental laws prevent them from building earthships in Belgium at the moment, so they would like to learn as much as they can to build up a base on the Web where fans of different countries can obtain information and exchange experiences.
'We want to support one another and meet like-minded', says Daan.
'We want to create an international team who travel across Europe to helps build earthships', says Willy.
More volunteers next year
The team plans to return to the construction site in Skattungbyn next summer. And then they would likely get more volunteers to join the journey up north. Jonas and Elin are talking with Orsa Municipality to acquire a further 2.8 hectares of land where they will both grow, and start building more passive houses of recycled and/or biodegradable materials, with solar systems.
'We thought of registering the project as a WWOOF farm, where volunteers from all over the world can come and work. Then you get to choose what you want to help. It will be more organized than in the summer', said Jonas.
The original article can be found here
Source: Dala Demokraten - 7th August 2010 - Front page
Source: Dala Demokraten - 7th August 2010 - page 14
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