Paper from Poop

In Sri Lanka, there's a guy who noticed that elephants have unique poop. So he took their poop with his own hands and built a business out of it.

Most of the paper we used today is made from trees. Specifically, it is made from fiber found inside of the tree.

This is why 15 billion trees are cut down every year and as much as 40% is used just for paper.

And we all know deforestation is one of the biggest problems facing planet Earth. The planet needs trees to survive.

Thusitha chose the poop of elephants because elephants only eat vegetables and vegetables are full of fiber. So, for every fiber that comes in, it has to come out and an elephant poop has to be full of fiber. And the more they eat, the more they poop.

One adult elephant can poop 16 times a day. That's why only 12 elephants are needed to produce 1 tonne of poop in just 1 day.

Thusitha knew that there is an opportunity so he collected poop from elephant orphanages, dried it under the sun, boiled it up to 200 degrees, mixed it in a huge pot, spread the mixture in a mould, smoothed it, cut it, combined it and he made a perfectly clean safe paper book that does not smell like poop.

The amount of poop that elephants produced can turn into more than 50,000,000 sheets of A4 paper in just 1 year.

It's such a brilliant idea that Thusitha made a company out of it. From having a 7 people at the start, now he has 80 people working full time. Almost all of them are women who otherwise would find no job opportunities.

And it's not just humans who benefit from this business it's also animals.

Thusitha's efforts are paying off because he is now selling elephant poop paper in over 30 countries. He hired 80 people, he adopted 16 elephants and he kept thousands of trees alive.

Thank you for reading!