Dung Paper

Jul 6, 2016
1 min read

At the Elephant Conservation Center with 50 elephants there is a lot of dung! With the conservation effort in mind they put all of the dung to good use. Hundreds of kilograms of dung are collected daily and then processed in a biogas plant. The methane gas produced as a byproduct is used both for cooking fuel and for generating electricity. Some of the solid waste is composted, processed and used as organic fertilizer. And most of the remaining fiber is turned into paper.

The process for making dung paper is the same process used to produce Thailand's traditional mulberry paper, called kradaat saa. The paper has a coarse texture and is made into a variety of colors using dye. We were able to watch the full paper making process and we participated in making large sheets of paper ourselves.

These are the images I shot of the dung paper making facility. Enjoy!