Oh no! I am not taking about the toiler paper that you use every morning ;) But referring to paper made from animal POO… Ok so I know, now you are saying eeeeeeeew while you  are also scrunching your nose and hanging out your tongue. I agree it sounds somewhat disgusting and ask why does someone even need to do that?

The answer is simple. Paper is usually made from trees. If we can find alternate ways of making paper we will have to cut lesser trees. Good for our mother Earth right?

Its not like animal dung has not been used before. Dung of different fiber-eating vegetarian animals has been used for many useful ways: as a fuel; as a building material; as an insect repellent since ages. Now these  fiber-eating animals like horses, elephants, rhinos, panda eat lots of grass and vegetation everyday and they poop almost as much. Since the digestive systems of these specific animals don’t really break down the vegetation all that well, their poop has plenty of fiber even after the meal is consumed.

So not too long ago we discovered the art of making natural, recycled and odorless paper from dung. How does someone do that? Isn’t it gross?

Not if you just think of poo as base material used in paper production. This poop is rinsed thoroughly and only the fiber is retained. The fiber is boiled for sometime so that all that is left is a squishy pulp. A disinfectant is also added during boiling to kill bacteria that is there in the dung. The pulp is then taken to cement/ wooden vats filled with water. Depending on the weight of the paper to be made the required amount of pulp is mixed with the water. A flat sieve-like mold is used to lift a layer of pulp out of water. This thin layer of pulp is then dried

And hurrah! A sheet of paper is made!!

With growing concerns over deforestation, if we can recycle waste  material to create it into something fresh and new, why not?

Tell me.. do you still think it is gross?