Houses come in all shapes and sizes and they are made of all sorts of materials ranging from wood, concrete, and clay to hemp, straw, and mud. But I imagine that there are very few made from cow dung. That, however, might soon change if a group of students from Prasetiya Mulya Business School in Indonesia have anything to do with it.
According to Treehugger, their innovative invention – the cow dung brick – just won the $25,000 top prize in the University of Berkeley’s Global Social Venture Competition. Called the Ecofaebrick, it is 20% lighter and 20% stronger than traditional clay bricks and is completely renewable as long as there are cows around.
Designed to be used in developing regions in Indonesia where cows and their dung are plentiful, the ecofaebrick sounds like a win-win situation. Apparently, building with ecofaebricks instead of the firewood would save 1,692 tons of carbon emissions. And not using clay bricks would reduce the need to excavate clay and damage the land.
Definitely a trend worth keeping an eye on.