It’s really nice to watch those gentle giant pandas in a reserve. But, from the environmental point of view, keeping the reserve out of their poop is not that easy. Researchers at a southern China’s giant panda reserve have come up with a better solution to this – recycle the poop!
Taking inspiration form paper made from elephant dung, the researchers planned to recycle the surplus of the ‘fiber-rich’ panda excrement into high quality ‘paper.’ They think that panda poop would produce an even finer quality paper.
Liao Jun, a researcher at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Base in Sichuan province hopes to have a product line of panda poop-made paper available by next year.
Presently, the base is on with talks with several paper mills on turning the droppings of Jing Jing, Ke Bi, Ya Ya and dozens of other pandas into reams of office paper and rolls of wrapping paper at the base.
Liao said,
We are not interested in doing this for the profits but to recycle the waste. It’s environmentally friendly. We can use the paper ourselves and also we can sell whatever is left over.
