What kind of souvenirs would you like to buy after visiting China? What about a notebooks or booklets made by Panda poop? Not a joke! Researchers at a giant panda reserve in southern China Szechwan are planning to produce papers and other souvenirs by giant panda excrement. The research claimed that giant panda excrement is fiber-rich which is excellent to process into high quality paper.

This is not a new idea. The idea was taken from Thailand which produces paper out of elephant dung. Also, if you may remember, China sent two giant pandas to live Thailand in 2003 for ten years. The Zoo in Thailand is already using the two giant pandas’ excrement to produce souvenirs, such as notebook, booklet, and folding fans. The zoo made more than US$7,000 in profit by doing so.

The researchers stated that they are not interesting on making profit out of it, but a good way to recycle the waste. According to the researchers, the giant panda reserve produces about 200 tons of giant panda excrement a year. It used to cost them effort to dump all the excrement and surplus uneaten bamboo. The waste can now have a better use.

There are already a few paper mills in talk with the reserve, and the paper may come out as soon as next year. The majority of the paper will be use by the reserve, and the remaining will be turning into souvenirs.

Making paper from giant panda excrement involves a process of cleaning the feces, boiling it in a soda solution, bleaching it with chlorine and drying it under the sun.

More to know: There are about 1,600 giant pandas believed to be living in wild around 180 are being raised in captivity in zoos globally.

Sources:

http://english.people.com.cn/…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/…

http://www.ccn.com.cn/…

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