After the 2004 tsunami, Reynolds and his team built this demonstration home in the Andaman Islands.

Reynolds recognized the need for a housing test site, where he could try out designs unencumbered by building codes. “Garbage Warrior,” a documentary by British filmmaker Oliver Hodge, chronicles Reynolds’ nearly four-year struggle on behalf of the Sustainable Development Testing Site Act, which became law in New Mexico in 2007.

Reynolds’ iconoclastic ideas have been welcomed abroad, particularly in the developing world. After the 2004 tsunami destroyed housing and water supplies throughout Southeast Asia, Reynolds was invited to India’s Andaman Islands to build a demonstration self-sustaining house out of debris from the storm. Earthships collect and filter rain water. “The island people still get water from that one-room house,” he says.

In May, Reynolds and crew are traveling to Haiti to seek Haitian government approval to build four blocks of “permanent ‘organic rubble housing,’” says Reynolds. Haitian crews will be incorporated once construction begins, so local workers can learn the building techniques and continue after Reynolds and his crew leave.

Even without a disaster, some local governments see the wisdom in Reynolds’ ways. The town of Las Cabos, Mexico, at the tip of Baja is being buried in garbage, and also suffers from a housing shortage. “The municipal government wants us to build low-income housing from the waste at the dump. The site is beautiful waterfront land, and they have the funds.” Mexico’s less restrictive building codes make this project easier, cheaper, and faster to build.