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Why do we make paper from elephant poop?
All paper is obtained from pulp and pulp is derived from fiber!
It’s possible to turn poo into paper. We make Elephant Poo Paper!
Recycled elephant poo paper is a speciality paper made usally in Thailand, India and Sri Lanka.
The poo from your favourite herbivore cows, elephants, goats, donkey, and other grass-munchers, can make paper that you can write on.
Did You Know?
A grown Asian elephant daily consumes on an average 150 – 200 kilograms of food.
Almost 80% of an elephant’s day is spent feeding. This, in turn, produces up to 100 kilograms of droppings. That’s a lot of poo-tential paper.
Let’s take a closer look at the journey the poo takes from well, being a few kilos of the dense fibrous object to beautiful, environmentally friendly, handmade paper!
An elephant only digests about 45% of its food. The byproduct is mostly fiber, that makes the best raw material in the papermaking process. The dung of one elephant can provide about 115 sheets of A4 paper per day.
The elephant poop paper aids in reducing deforestation and saving the indigenous tree populations of nearby forests from being destroyed.
Elephant poo paper making
At Bluecat Paper, we always try and do something different, coming up with clever ideas, involving the local community, reducing waste, saving trees etc
This unique method of papermaking directly contributes to the local economy. We train our workers to make our paper and hire artisans to create visually appealing products.
We love to talk about how we make our paper and the steps that we take to turn Poop into Paper.
Learn how we create our amazing, eco-friendly, organic, sustainable, tree-free Elephant Poo Paper. Here is how we do it
The Elephant Poo Paper Making Process
- Collecting the Poo
- Cleaning and Boiling
- Mixing and Blending
- Screening
- Drying
Eco-Friendly, Tree-free, Chemical-free, sustainable clean Elephant dung paper is 100% Organic and is made with Real Poo!
At Bluecat Paper we create 100% Tree-Free paper. All our papers are free of bleaches and Chemicals!
Papers created all over the world are made from a pulp mixture derived from fiber materials. The most habitual papers created these days are by using wood pulp from trees.
At Bluecat Paper we use no wood pulp in our paper. Our paper is made from fibers that are 100% Tree-Free, Sustainable and Acid free
The Poo (Pooh, Poop or Dung) fibers – of course, from cows, horses, donkeys, buffalos, along with other animal waste-materials can make amazing, all natural, TREE-FREE, Chemical-FREE, paper and paper products.
All the herbivores animals have high fibrous diets of bamboo, sugarcane, grasses, banana trees, leaves, twigs, fruits and/or various other plants and vegetation.
All these animals possess somewhat inefficient digestive systems that don’t completely digest and breakdown all the fibers that they eat. The significant amount of fibers remaining intact when these animals poop help making it suitable in papermaking.
Collecting
We collect elephant poo from the elephant sanctuaries near Dubare Elephant Camp (Coorg) and thereby begins the process of papermaking.
Cleaning & Boiling
Here’s exactly where the magic happens. This process disinfects the dung, and works it until the only thing left is a pulp of fibers. High pressured water releases the fiber from the poo.
Cleaning and boiling are important stages in the elephant dung papermaking process. All non-fibre substances such as stones, dirt, mud, leaves etc. are removed as much as possible.
To make sure the remains are real elephant dung fiber material.
The fibers are ‘boiled to a pulp’ for 4-6 hours which alleviate the fibers and makes it more supple resulting in an oatmeal-like slurry.
The boiling process occurs at 90-100 degrees celsius in order to ensure that the protein-based cells of any bacteria are destroyed by extreme heat.
Our cleaning and boiling processes use no chemicals or other cleansing agents like bleach or chlorine that would be harmful to the environment – we use only water and we recycle the water back into production.
Mixing
The further step is to thoroughly mix and blend the elephant poo pulp fibers together with other seasonally available trees free fiber pulp material which allows us to make a stronger, well-bonded sheet of paper. This increases the strength of the paper.
These non-wood fibers may include cotton rag, coffee husk, tea leaves, banana fiber, linen rags, flax fiber, hemp fiber, mulberry twigs, corn husk, lemongrass, rice stubble, coconut coir and others depending on seasonal availability. The incorporation process transforms the raw pulp into a stringy, cellulose-filled, stew mixture.
Screening
Screening refers to the process of making the actual sheets of paper using a framed screen. This method has been followed since the innovation of paper in China in 105 AD.
The pulp mixture is poured into a large tub filled with water where a framed screen is already immersed.
The papermaker collects the sinking pulp fibers with the framed screen and then manually spreads the fibers evenly across the entire surface of the screen.
The fibers are evenly rolled out and if there are any small particles on the frame, it is then removed by hand. The screen is lifted out of the basin and the water drips down through the screen. Then the screen is placed upright into the sunlight to dry naturally.
Drying
The screens lay facing the sun for several hours until the pulp had dried. The time may vary depending on the weather conditions and the thickness of the paper being made.
Once dried, the newly formed sheet is then easily removed from the screen and hung on the wire with a pair of clothespins. With a supply of freshly made sheets of paper, the next step in the process is to prepare all the materials needed to make a Bluecatpaper product.
This always involves cutting the paper into all sorts of shapes and sizes, glueing, binding and decorating and often printing.
The paper created at Bluecat Paper is made into a wide variety of products, from journals and notepads to photo frames and greeting cards, Browse our store to have a look at our work – Tree-Free paper, Eco-Friendly Paper, Handmade Paper Products
Elephant Poo paper is perfect for wedding invites, bags, stationery, envelopes, and bookmarks.
Save trees. Use tree-free paper
We hope you care enough to give a shit!!