A good solution to a big problem doesn’t always have to be expensive or complicated. Sometimes a little bit of creative thinking can yield great results.

Turkey is a country that is very prone to earthquakes.

Many poor people live in self-built masonry houses that aren’t well built to withstand a strong earthquake. These houses crumble more often and much easier in an earthquake than buildings designed by architects and engineers.

Dr. Ahmet Turer, a structural engineer in Turkey, came up with a "do-it yourself" solution of how poor people themselves can make their houses stronger.

Turer thinks that encasing house walls in discarded car tires will make them more able to withstand earthquakes!!! In other words, bricks won't crumble causing the roof to cave in onto people.

Traditional ways to make earthquake-resistant brick homes, require money, scaffolding, cement mixers and skilled workers. Most poor people can’t afford that!

But it is easy to find discarded car tires and they are free. This approach is also ecologically-friendly since it recycles otherwise useless materials, like tires.

"If this approach works, just think how many lives could be saved and how much material loss could be prevented on the global scale," says Turer.

Turer and his team are now testing this idea in a laboratory to figure out the best way to stack tires. Once they come up with the best approach, they will start publicizing this idea and talking to poor people who could benefit from it.

What does it mean?

Masonry Houses:  Houses built of stone, brick or adobe.