Scrapbooking with Elephant Poo
Mr. Ellie Pooh-Elephant Dung Paper
As you can probably imagine, a lot of my email focuses of paper crafts in some way. Being that I use gmail, there are sponsored links on the side. The link for Mr. Ellie Pooh-Elephant Dung Paper comes up on the side of pretty much every email I read.
I love elephants, so of course I had to check out the site. As the name implies they offer paper products made from recycled elephant poo. As a teenager I volunteered at a zoo and had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time with the elephants. This time included a fair share of poo shoveling. I can confirm from my personal experience that the elephant’s waste is mostly plant matter and pretty nice stuff as far as the material goes.
The home page tells about the plight of elephants in Sri Lanka:
The elephant is running out of space in Sri Lanka. Most of
the protected areas inhabited by elephants are small, less
than 1000 sq. Km in size (900 sq. Miles). Nevertheless,
elephants, especially the bulls, may range over hundreds
of square kilometers in the course of a season. Their sheer
size and gargantuan appetite mean that elephants and
people cannot live together where agriculture is the
dominant form of land use, unless the damage they cause to
farmers can be compensated.
and how the idea of making paper from the elephant’s waste was born:
Since an elephant’s diet is all vegetarian, the waste produced is basically raw cellulose. Thoroughly
cleaned and processed, the cellulose is converted into a uniquely beautiful textured product, marketed
as “Ellie Pooh Paper�. This acid free, linen-like papyrus-type paper can be formed into art and
construction projects, notebooks, cards and assorted gift items where the only limitation is ones
imagination. These products have proved extremely popular among many in the local population and
among foreign tourists.
A visit to their store brings a surprise for scrapbookers. They make their acid-free elephant poo paper in to what looks like some fun products made just for us scrappers including albums and cardstock.
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