This one is a very nice idea for a sustainable and throwable rain coat. Equilicuá’s Spud Raincoat is made from potato starch and impregnated with seeds, making it fully biodegradable, compostable and suitable for planting.

It’s one thing for a cardboard box to be infused with seeds and designed for planting at the end of its useful life. It’s quite another, however, to see a similar concept in something made from plastic. However, it’s no ordinary plastic used in Equilicuá’s Spud Raincoat — rather, the PVC alternative is made from potato starch and fully biodegradable, compostable and suitable for planting.

Equilicuá’s Spud Raincoat can be reused numerous times, its maker says, since it’s only biodegradable under specific conditions. Available in white with red print, the poncho-style garment is priced at EUR 15. Once the user is done with it, however, the Spud Raincoat can be planted in the ground. Not only is its potato starch-based “Fantastic Bioplastic” fully compostable, but — through a collaboration with La Fundación + árboles — it’s been impregnated with the seeds of various Mediterranean plants and shrubs. For that reason, in fact, Equilicuá currently distributes the raincoat only in the European Union and Mediterranean countries where the seeds are native; coming soon are versions with seeds derived from other parts of the world.

Green innovations are no longer just the reserve of obvious ecological offenders such as those in the automotive industry. No matter what your product or service, there’s no longer any excuse for not doing it greener. This sustainable idea is the ideal way for us here in the Philippines to practice specially for the entrepreneurs.

A company in the U.S. started an almost plug and play sustainable eco friendly business called CompostNow. With CompostNow you can home compost, without composting at home. Members receive a small bin to keep in your kitchen or on your back porch. Fill it with all you organic waste. This includes all food waste, paper products, and anything else compostable.

As a CompostNow member, you are entitled to receive the final results of your composting efforts. Here’s the deal, on average composting yields about %50 of the original weight of waste. In other words, if they’ve collected 100 lbs of waste from you, you are entitled to have up to 50 lbs of nutrient-rich soil delivered right to your doorstep. CompostNow costs $25 for weekly pickups and is only available in Raleigh, North Carolina. Could this work here in the Philippines? This might be the solution to our garbage problem that clogs our drainage which cause flooding.

Business ideas can come from anything and one man just thought of a great idea using Bernie Madoff’s clothes turned into Iphone covers. Here is the whole story from CNN Money:

If you’ve ever dreamed of turning the tables and taking Bernie Madoff to the cleaners, here’s your chance. John Vaccaro, a New York entrepreneur, is selling iPad covers made from the disgraced financier’s tailored clothes. Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison in June, 2009 for swindling billions of dollars from clients in what has been called the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history.

Last November, his clothes and personal possessions were sold at auction sponsored by the U.S. Marshals Service with proceeds going to help those who lost money from his scheme.

One of the bidders at the auction was Vaccaro, 41, who had just launched a new company, frederickjames.com selling eco-friendly customized iPad covers made from cashmere and other fine fabrics. Vaccaro first conceived the idea for his unique covers after purchasing an iPad and searching for a cover that would prove to be both scratch-resistant and fashionable.

A member-owned supermarket or grocery store is not so common here in the Philippines except for some grocery stores under large cooperatives. But this member-owned supermarket has a different twist that may click here in the Philippines for thrifty Filipinos.

A supermarket is recently launch in London called the People’s Supermarket. Only members can shop at the People’s Supermarket, but they all get a 10 percent discount on prices as well as a say in how the store is run. In exchange, members pay an annual membership fee of GBP 25, and they also pledge to volunteer four hours of their time per month working as store staff. Because the supermarket’s workforce is nearly all volunteers, staff costs are kept low this way — an advantage that can be passed on in lower prices. Any profits that are earned, meanwhile, get put back into the store to bring down prices even further.

Food co-ops are not uncommon in the US, but it’s interesting to see their reemergence in the UK following a bout of unusually tough times. Could this be a great solution for the Filipinos to end poverty in our country…?

A new kind of adhesive is reported from Gazette-Times, Kaichang Li, a professor of wood science at Oregon State University, receives a dozen calls each day from businesses interested in his laboratory’s latest invention: an inexpensive adhesive made of natural materials.

He said they’re interested in the adhesive’s use of simple, reusable ingredients, including vegetable oil, which keeps costs down.

“If I gave you the recipe, you could cook it in your kitchen at home,” Li said.

Li and his team stumbled upon their discovery while trying to develop an all-natural adhesive that melts at high temperatures but is solid at room temperature, used for cardboard or wood furniture.

They didn’t reach their original goal, but found a pressure-sensitive adhesive – one that requires pressure for use – that can be used on all types of products, from duct tape to sticky notes to labels.

The vegetable oil-based adhesive is posed to make an impact: Li said environmentally friendly adhesives on the market today are expensive, adding that nearly all adhesives are made from petroleum-based chemicals.

“Even if we use up the world’s oil supply, we can still make tape” with this technology, Li said. A great negosyo idea for environment conscious entrepreneurs.

Photo by Gazette-Times.

Have you heard lately that Apple iPhones have erratic signal? There’s one surefire way to solve the iPhone 4 antenna problem: don’t let your hand or fingers come in contact with its metal band.

Easier said than done, right? Unless you’re willing to constantly use the speakerphone, a headset, or a pair of gloves, your only viable option is to keep the iPhone in a case–or, as some have discovered, wrap it in a rubber “bumper.”

A CNET report that iPhone Guru blogger Oliver Nelson crafted a clever DIY iPhone 4 bumper solution out of one of those rubber wristbands you probably have sitting in a junk drawer.

It’s a pretty straightforward project: stretch a wristband around the edge of your iPhone and presto, you’re done. If you’re handy with an X-Acto knife, you can cut holes for the headphone jack, mute switch, dock connector, and so on.

Photo by Oliver Nelson.

Coffee Shop are all around in the Philippines this days and you might be wondering with all the coffee they are making there are lots of used coffee ground that are put into the garbage. Here is a great business idea from the U.S. utilizing the discarded coffee grounds from Bloomberg BusinessWeek. A University of California, Berkeley business students Nikhil Arora and Alex Velez perked up when a business ethics professor mentioned a sustainable business opportunity: using nutrient-rich discarded coffee grounds to grow mushrooms.

Hooked on the idea of “creating a business out of waste streams,” Arora says, the pair tested the idea in a fraternity kitchen in early 2009. When their mushrooms sprouted a month later, they started BTTR (pronounced Better) Ventures, and by the time they graduated that May, they had a $5,000 grant from Berkeley and interest from such customers as Whole Foods and Berkeley chef Alice Waters.

BTTR Ventures collects 8,000 pounds of coffee grounds each week that shops such as Peet’s Coffee would otherwise discard. When they’re done growing mushrooms, Arora, 23, and Velez, 22, donate the compost to local schools and community gardens.

In addition to selling the mushrooms they grow in their 2,500-square foot warehouse, they sell starter kits to let consumers grow their own mushrooms. The home kits now move at a rate of about 200 a week in local Whole Foods, with additional sales online, and make up half of BTTR Ventures’ business.

Photo by Kristen Loken.

A cute diaper idea in U.S. by Ada Vaughan created a booming diaper business. By combining her passions as a mom and her love of cloth diaper spark the idea.

It all began in 2008 sewing diapers in her basement. She tried different things such as illustrations and even made 40 different kinds of baby food. She really wanted to own her own business. She started working with a professional seamstress in 2009 and then went to China and looked at the factory where the diapers would be made.

CuteyBaby offer 8 different prints for the modern cloth diapers that customers can choose from. There is also the “Zip it, Baby!” dry bags where dirty diapers can be kept neatly until laundry time. There are two size options for the dry bags. There are also “Keep It Clean” biodegradable liner sheets.

Photo by CuteyBaby

Check this out a recycled carton made into a feeding chair for children. Not just eco friendly but very ingenious. Springwise reports of a new kid on the flat-pack furniture block, offering a portable high chair solution. Made from recycled cardboard, the Feedaway from Melbourne-based Belkiz is an easy-to-assemble, lightweight version of the traditional feeding chair. It’s designed to be used away from home, wherever baby or toddler feeding chairs aren’t available, and otherwise folded away.

Designed for infants aged up to 20 months or weighing up to 20 kilograms, the Feedaway comes with a three-point safety harness. Its non-toxic food-grade coating can be cleaned with a wet cloth. It weighs approximately one kilogram (2.2 lbs), and Belkiz claims it will last for around 30 assemblies. After that, it’s 100% recyclable.

Retailing for AUD 39.95, the Feedaway is a convenient piece of ‘take away’ toddler furniture and should fold nicely into the increasingly mobile lifestyles of parents with an eye for eco-iconic design. Belkiz is currently seeking stockists for the Feedaway in Australia, and distributors in the US and EU.

Photo by Belkiz.