Unorthodox papermaking helps a Thai elephant refuge

The paper factory is a small operation located on a hill and surrounded by trees in the vast elephant center. The open-air business is spread out over a grassy lawn and under a covered work area. One of the first things a visitor notices are the many sheets of paper lined up to dry in neat rows in front of the building.

Asawawibulkij, a jovial, compact man with a permanent smile, explains that this papermaking process is as environmentally friendly as possible.

The dung is collected and boiled for five hours in a large vat. The fibrous heap that remains is then treated with hydrogen peroxide, an environmentally safe bleaching agent, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. (The water is recycled on the garden.)

The sanitized fibers are put in a mechanical spinner until they’re the right consistency. Dye is added. After about three hours of spinning, the fibers are shaped into balls of a precise weight: Each ball will become a sheet of thick paper about 22 inches wide and 30 inches long. The fiber balls are added to water in a bucket, mixed well, then carefully spread onto a screen frame. The frames are left to dry in the abundant sunlight.

Once the paper is dry, souvenirs such as stationery, notebooks, and photo albums are made to be sold to visitors.

Bold tourists can help create the paper. On a recent visit, Australian Alison Foster dived into the task while her husband videotaped it. “The dung itself was soft, and dissolved in the water very quickly,” says Foster by e-mail. “It didn’t smell though, so after the initial reaction to it the rest of the process wasn’t too bad.” Sadly, she couldn’t bring any paper back home. “Customs didn’t allow us to bring it into Australia, as you are not allowed to introduce foreign seeds and grains to the country,” she says, and the paper does contain a few undigested seeds. “But we were happy that the money had gone to helping the elephants.”

Paper is not the only elephant-dung product here: Biogas and compost are made as well. The elephant mahouts (the trainers who stay with elephants for their entire lives) use the biogas to cook for themselves and overnight tourists.

The local community also benefits: Local villagers are employed to make the products, and they now earn a decent wage. The dung products bring in about $270,000 per year.
But the ones who benefit most are the elephants themselves. The dung factory calls it the “circle of conservation – elephants helping elephants.”

• Current TV has a video showing papermaking process. For more information, go to www.elephantdungpaper.com.

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