From Textile Waste to DIY Building: Upcycling Post-Consumer Clothing Waste with Sewn Earthbag Fabrication Processes
Research Poster Arts & Humanities 2025 Graduate ExhibitionPresentation by Tiffanie Leung
Exhibition Number 124
Abstract
Earthbag construction is a historically humanitarian and handcraft-centered building method that draws upon its strengths of easy-to-teach practices and low-cost practicality. Bags are filled with earth, stacked, and tamped on top of each other. Builders do not need prior construction skill. Because the primary building material is earth, which is available locally, and wall assembly does not require machinery, earthbag construction is considered to be a low-tech and sustainable building method. There exists a few contradictions in this consideration, however. Barbed wire, cement stabilizers, and non-biodegradable bag materials are also used in earthbag construction. The research addressing these contradictions frames earthbag construction within the context of a larger environmental issue: fast fashion waste. Research redirecting the textile waste stream into earthbag construction aims to verify whether post-consumer clothing waste can replace polypropylene, a nonrenewable material, in earthbag construction. A mixed methods approach is in use: combining interviews to identify local clothing circular streams, categorization of materials, and design-as-research to iterate earthbag containers sewn from used clothing. A quantitative comparison of conventional earthbag construction methods to a modified sewn (or “tailored”) earthbag construction methodology results in a refinement of a sewn clothes-to-earthbag production process that measures the weight and density of fabrics for application in an earthbag wall. A new sewn earthbag production method aims to reduce textile waste and provide alternate materials to build homes in places in need of housing.
Importance
Traditional earthbag construction is energy-intensive– manually lifting large quantities of earth is not ideal, especially for individuals lacking the physical strength. Customizing the earthbag container to a smaller size or shape would not only improve the earthbag construction process, but it would allow alternate and more sustainable materials to be used instead of polypropylene. Textile waste, which is detrimental to the environment and consumes a large amount of natural resources, can be one substitute for polypropylene. Using textile waste for earthbags can reduce the number of textiles sent to the landfill and broaden the material possibilities for earthbag construction practice.