Ok, I couldn't quite come up with a headline on this one. The thing is, in order to make bricks we cut down trees. This new recipe uses sand, bacteria, calcium chloride and urea, all easy-to-come-by materials. The process does not require an outside heat source, so the trees are protected.

It seems like urea, is becoming quite a sustainable ingredient. Beyond being tapped as a good source of hydrogen used in fuel cell batteries it is now being used to make sustainable bricks.

Architect Ginger Krieg Dosier has designed a process to "grow" bricks by combining the materials listed above. Traditional brick-making is very energy-intensive, producing more pollution than global air travel each year. It also consumes a lot of resources: 400 trees are burned to make 25,000 bricks.

The new sustainable bricks are as strong as traditional bricks, maybe stronger depending on the recipe used for the traditional bricks. We need to keep an open mind about resources, I know some people will have a hard time with the idea of handling a brick made with urea, but keep in mind in chemistry it is just an acid.

For more information, and the recipe, follow the related link below: