Paper Made From Poo?

Alternative methods of making paper are becoming more common as people are becoming more aware of the impact we are having on the earth. Paper alone consumes an alarming amount of trees per year. One tree can make approximately sixteen and one half reams of office paper. With one ream containing five hundred sheets of paper. To make about one ton of writing paper it can take between twelve to twenty four trees. Americans alone use more than fifty million tons of paper each year which consumes more than eight hundred and fifty million trees. That is a lot of paper. The average American doesn’t really think about how much paper gets used.

 Paper can be made out so many different fibers. It can be made out of:

·         Hemp

·       Banana tree fibers

·        Bamboo

·         Cotton

·         Pineapple fibers

·         Straw

·         Grass

·         Flowers

·         Coconut fibers

·         Linen

·         Recycled paper

And Panda Poop? Yes it’s true. Pandas consume a lot of bamboo throughout the day, and as a result they leave behind about twenty two and a half pounds of droppings each by the time the day is over. That is a lot of panda poo! Can you imagine having to clean all that up? In China, when the care takers of a panda couple became weary of disposing the fifty five pounds of poo the pandas left behind at the end of a day, they came up with an idea to turn the poo that they cleaned up into fans, bookmarks and even key chains. These panda poo products have proven to be quite hot selling items in the zoos gift shop, bringing in more than ten thousand dollars in a year.

   A panda’s diet is very fiber heavy, they eat bamboo. Because pandas only digest about twenty percent of their food there is a lot of bamboo left in their droppings that is undigested. The droppings are collected then they are rinsed off, leaving behind the bamboo fibers. The cleaned fibers are then placed in a giant pot and boiled in a soda solution to make sure all the fibers are really clean. Then it is bleached with chlorine, rolled out and left out in the sun to dry for several hours. After it is dry it is made into paper products. When the paper is finished it doesn’t smell bad but may give off a slight bamboo scent.

Not only could this save panda keeping facilities thousands of dollars a year from the disposal of the droppings alone but it could help support taking care of the pandas also. Panda poo is a very reliable and renewable source of fibers to make paper with. Imagine how many trees would be saved if people used paper that is made out of renewable resources!

For now until a paper mill is located to process larger amounts of panda poo it is hard to find and purchase. However there are only a couple of online stores where panda poo products can be purchased. Here is one:

Uncommon Goods- if you type in panda poo into the keyword search it will bring up all of their panda poo products

http://www.uncommongoods.com/