A low-cost post carbon house has now been completed in Cape Town by non-profit organisation Schools Environmental Education and Development (SEED) as an active example of how people can life happily ‘off the grid’ in a sustainable fashion. Entitled ‘The Homestead’, the modest home has been constructed using tyres, cement, recycled wooden pallets, tin cans and cardboard boxes for only R80,000 (€7,600) and is located on the site of Rocklands Primary School.

With low technology applications and extensive recycling facilities, the home encourages its residents to use run-off rainwater to grow herbs and vegetables. Director of SEED, Leigh Brown, explains: “The Homestead Model offers more space and better individual sanitary systems than most RDP houses but over and above this, it is a future-fit solution for a rapidly expanding low income population - not just in South Africa but in many developing countries around the world.”