A zoo in Thailand has come up with
a use for the vast piles of panda manure they collect – they’re making
paper out of it, and selling it in the form of souvenirs, according to
news reports.
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A zoo in Thailand has come up with a use for the vast piles of panda manure they collect – they’re making paper out of it, and selling it in the form of souvenirs, according to news reports.
Pandas tend to excrete large amounts of bamboo pulp that they’re unable to digest, none of which would normally be sold as a souvenir. But zookeepers in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai have taken a traditional method of making paper from mulberry trees, and used it to convert the poop into paper.
“We know that any kind of pulp can be used to make paper, so we have applied the 2,000-year techniques of making paper from mulberry trees in this rural neighborhood to bamboo pulp from panda dung,” said the zoo’s Prasertsak Buntrakoonpoontawee.
The zoo said they were then turning the dung-paper into items such as greetings cards, fans and bookmarks, selling around 300,000 baht ($8,500 US) worth of goods last year.
