I just came accross this posted in rec.woodworking:
It's a long way from weaving your own stuff from reeds and willow withies to modern day oil tempered hardboards and etc., one wonders how long it will be before the circle turns fully and we start using home grown reeds etc to make our own compressed material in beams and the like.
I doubt such a thing would go down well with most of the modern building factors as they have almost completely turned the building ethos of "using local materials" on its head.
Mind you having lived in Stoke on Trent for the last few years, I am not blind to the fact that even clay was imported at (initially) great expense -overland too, for the sake of an ancient and fairly low paying trade.
Aye and nowadays although we sit on a mountain laid on coal, it is cheaper and easier and far healthier to import oil from quarter of the way around the world too. Hush my mouth then...