Presently in India, about 960 million tonnes of solid waste is being generated annually as by-products during industrial, mining, municipal, agricultural and other processes. Of this ∼350 million tonnes are organic wastes from agricultural sources; ∼290 million tonnes are inorganic waste of industrial and mining sectors and ∼4.5 million tonnes are hazardous in nature. Advances in solid waste management resulted in alternative construction materials as a substitute to traditional materials like bricks, blocks, tiles, aggregates, ceramics, cement, lime, soil, timber and paint.

Traditional architecture makes for better homes

Due to continuous removal of topsoil, which is appropriate for agricultural purposes, is being used in production of conventional fired clay bricks, which results in depletion of natural resources for agriculture. Due to rapid industrialization, enormous quantities of wastes are generated by industries. In the present research work, efforts were made by Regional Research Laboratory (RRL), Bhopal to develop stabilized copper mine tailings bricks for 35, 50, 75 and 100 kg compressive strength, using copper mine tailings waste in combination with sand and cement.

But building biology helps remove harmful electromagnetic fields from architecture