We’ve covered the value of worm poop, and now it’s time for the merits of cow dung to come to the fore. EcoFaeBrick turns cattle waste into bricks that are greener, stronger and 20% lighter than regular clay bricks.

The Indonesian organization was set up earlier this year to tackle the problem of excessive waste in farming areas. From this, the ecological and economical solution of the Cow Dung Brick was born. There's no visible difference between a traditional brick and the dung brick—and before you ask, there's no smell either. Instead of using wood fire the dung bricks are fired using biogas, helping to further reduce carbon emissions. The new product also lets land be retained for farming, rather than being excavated for clay for conventional bricks, or becoming a health risk due to ‘too much dung’.

A green product that boosts the wealth of rural Indonesians, it's not hard to see why EcoFaeBrick came first in the 2009 Global Social Venture competition. The company has identified 22 areas around Indonesia that they want to expand the project to, plus 22 more in other parts of the world. One to support, or otherwise get involved with!

Website: www.ecofaebrick.com
Contact: yusufaria@ecofaebrick.com

Spotted by: Tais Reis

Targeting consumers who want to consume less energy but also enjoy shiny new gadgets, Canadian Ecobee has developed a smart thermostat that enables easy remote control of a home's energy use.

Installation involves hooking up the device to a customer’s existing wifi network and then registering it online, so that users can log in to Ecobee's portal and control their thermostat from wherever they can access the web. While regular programmable thermostats stick to fixed routines, Ecobee’s online access means that users have flexible control over home heating and cooling, adjusting as needed if they’ll be home earlier or later than expected.

The Smart Thermostat is priced at USD 385 plus shipping and installation, plus USD 35 per year access to Ecobee’s portal. Besides direct sales to consumers in Canada and the US, Ecobee is also pitching its device and platform to utility companies. By adding pricing visualization to the thermostat's information mix, utilities can make consumers even more aware of their energy use, which could have the added benefit of reducing peak loads. (Related: Home security with an energy-monitoring twist — Home energy monitoring, delivered by Google.)

Website: www.ecobee.com
Contact: info@ecobee.com

Spotted by: Amanda Bond

We've written about several tools that help apartment tenants notify landlords of the need for repairs, but recently one caught our eye that focuses on the flip side instead. Specifically, Tenant Txt gives landlords a simple, paperless way to keep tenants informed.

Tenant Txt, based in Houston, is a mass alert and reminder system that allows rental communities of all sizes to easily communicate with tenants, maintenance workers and office personnel about maintenance repairs, criminal activity or community events via email and text message. Landlords can maintain an unlimited number of contacts along with their emails, mobile phone numbers and addresses; the online service uses a flat-file database, making it easy to import such information. To send an email or text message, users simply type or paste in their communication and submit; Tenant Txt then broadcasts it to the relevant list. Following a free, 15-day trial, Tenant Txt is priced starting at USD 25 per month. An autoresponder and a personalized Tenant Txt URL and email address are included with each subscription to the service.

By giving landlords a faster and more eco-minded alternative to distributing paper notices and other communications, Tenant Txt offers significant benefits on the user's end. Tenants, however, will also surely gain a better sense of immediacy and connection. Seems like a win-win all around and a no-brainer to be implemented—or emulated—in housing communities around the globe. Another paper-based process bites the dust! ;-) (Related: Web tools for landlords — Using pictures to help tenants request repairs.)

Website: www.tenanttxt.com
Contact: www.tenanttxt.com/contactus.html

Based—where else?—in Sweden, I LOVE IKEA is a new online marketplace for consumers looking to buy and sell secondhand IKEA furniture.

Buyers can search by region and city to find items nearby, or by category: bathroom, kitchen, office, etc. Product descriptions include the usual: photo, price and contact details, but are generally brief—after all, buyers can easily find more information in IKEA's catalogue. Placing ads is free until August 1st. After that, the site will charge sellers a small fee per ad.

On every general classifieds site, from Craigslist to preloved.co.uk, there's an abundance of secondhand IKEA goods on offer. According to I LOVE IKEA, they're included in over 20,000 ads per month in newspapers and online marketplaces. And that's just in Sweden. So it makes sense to create a marketplace dedicated to IKEA's wares, making it easier for consumers to locate items by name or type. I LOVE IKEA isn't affiliated with the object of their affection; as they put it, they're "a tribute to IKEA's amazing range, and a response to recent developments towards a more sustainable society." Following its launch in Sweden, I LOVE IKEA aims to expand to the rest of Europe soon.

Enduringly popular around the world, IKEA will no doubt continue to spawn businesses that offer complementary goods and services. Need more inspiration to start an IKEA 'feeder business' of your own? Check out slip covers for sofas by Bemz, delivery to Nasheville by ModerNash, decorative adhesives by Grippiks and add-ons by Parts of Sweden, all of which have built successful companies on an IKEA foundation.

Website: www.iloveikea.se
Contact: info@iloveikea.se

Spotted by: Robert Olzon

There's nothing like a sudden flurry of like-minded contenders to suggest an idea is a good one. Case in point: The proverbial ink had barely dried on our story last week about Spareground, the site that helps UK consumers rent out unused space, when we were alerted to not one but two similar services.

Los Angeles-based Homstie, for example, bills itself as a community marketplace for storage space. Launched by a team of UCLA students, Homstie aims to provide an alternative to the USD 22 billion storage industry and its rental fees of USD 700 per month or more. Listing and searching for space on Homstie are both free; the only fees the company charges are for making listings featured or highlighted—priced at USD 3 and USD 2, respectively—and for a custom lease agreement, which is priced at USD 19. Homstie does not facilitate rental payments, but it does offer member profiles, identity verification and a feedback system. Users of ad-supported Homstie can browse for listings by proximity to major California universities or by region across the United States.

Store at My House, meanwhile, also serves US consumers with listings of parking and storage space nationwide. Users can search the ad-supported site by ZIP code for the space they need; if they can't find it, they can also create a request. Reputation ratings for space providers on the site, meanwhile, help ensure safety.

Enough said? The economy doesn't look to be making any dramatic improvements anytime soon, so there's still plenty of opportunity to spread this concept around the globe. So far, just the US and the UK seem to be covered; one to bring to cash-strapped consumers in a market near you?

Website: www.homstie.com — www.storeatmyhouse.com
Contact: www.homstie.com/contact — www.storeatmyhouse.com/contact.php

Spotted by: May Almero-Cruz and Susannah Haynie