Straw bail construction is an environmentally friendly way to build, it gives an incredibly well insulated, quiet house, and the results are really very pretty. Below is a "how to" video on straw bail construction.
Years ago I stumbled onto a really nice site that was part of a university's architecture program (I have looked for it many times since and it was obviously taken down). They were using these huge bails of cardboard waste from a factory. They even wrapped them in plastic and used them for the foundation! The resulting dorm cottages were quite nice to look at, the bails turned out to be pretty much fireproof (the outside would light, smolder, and extinguish), and with extremely wide eaves on the roof, water intrusion was no problem. So why don't you see more of these? Wax and plastic coated cardboard goes into the landfill because it cannot easily be recycled and if this were bailed and used in construction it would save us a great deal of room in our dumps, it would save us trees, and it would save us in heating and cooling costs. Oh, that's why. It might mean slighter profits for the timber industry. I forget who pays for our laws to be written.
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After Katrina, there was a guy who went to New Orleans with a technology that could turn trash into building material. He claimed that a number of these shipping container sized recycling units could have processed a 1000 tons a day and would have left behind a nice boon of useful material. They were mobile, too, so they could go from area to area. Probably speed things up a bit.
He offered to train local people and partnered with a 501-C-3 to channel generated funds back into the system. Neither the mayor or the city council would even give it a look.
He claimed his technology, which was an elaborate pulverization, separation and decontamination process, could remove toxins safely, separate metals and form the rest into drywall and boards etc. He claimed he could have cleaned up New Orleans in less than a year or so, IIRC.
I'm not sure if he was for real or not. He supposedly had a track record. His website is dead now, but I was able to find this segment of his proposal.
http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/09-23-05/discussion.cgi.62.html