A Sri Lankan company is taking recycling to a new level by using paper made from elephant dung to appeal to environmentally conscious locals and tourists.
Up-market restaurants and hotels are presenting their menus bound in exotic boards made of recycled dung, which the manufacturer guarantees is sun-dried, sanitized, disinfected and deodorized.
"It is a conversation piece. People immediately want to smell it," says Thusitha Ranasinghe, a director of Maximus, the company which makes the novel product.
But Maximus, named after the Asian elephant's original name "elephas maximus," is trying to offer more than just a blank sheet of recycled paper.
There is no trace of the raw material in the hand-made product, although a connoisseur may be able to tell what the elephant ate for dinner.
Ranasinghe says they offer two varieties of paper -- dark and light. The dark type comes from an elephant which has eaten a meal of branches from the palmyrah tree, while a jumbo snacking on coconuts will produce lighter paper.
A true expert may even be able to tell the age of the elephant that produced the dung for the paper.
The younger pachyderms can masticate their food better and therefore produce finer fiber in their dung. But when the dung of older animals is used the paper is thicker as they do not chew their food very well which results in thicker fiber.
There is money to be made from dung. Ten kilos usually produces 40 to 50 boards or 600 to 660 sheets of A4 paper. Six sheets of A4 paper cost up to US$1.50.
And it is environmentally friendly. Each tonne of paper made with elephant dung could save up to 20 trees, Ranasinghe said. It could also save the endangered elephants if people want to cash in on the money that can be made out of recycling dung.
The number of wild elephants in South Asia has decreased dramatically over the last century because of hunting and shrinking forests. Poachers kill elephants for ivory or for their tail hairs to make into rings which are supposed to bring good luck.
With their huge appetites, elephants can produce a lot of waste dung and Maximus depends on a small herd of domesticated jumbos in the central region of Kegalle for its supply. The elephant dung paper is also used for writing pads, boxes, visiting cards and greeting cards and Maximus is eyeing potential markets in Europe and Japan.
In Sri Lanka, the company already has an impressive list of customers, including the Hilton Hotel, HSBC Bank, Citi Bank, the Bank of Ceylon and the national carrier Sri Lankan Airlines.
RSS