Hi everyone! I hope you’re all well. Today is Wednesday, and time for another post in the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge hosted by Long and Short Reviews. If you want to participate in the challenge, you can find the list of topics for 2023 here, and if you would like to see what others had to say about this week’s topic, you can do that here.

Share One Interesting Fact You Know

I love elephants. I think they are fascinating, and a couple of years ago, I decided I would write a short fact book for children (and adults, I guess) all about Elephants.

I began my research and quickly came up with a humongous list of facts. However, I only wanted around twenty so I could incorporate them with some pictures to make the book easy to read and digest.

So, I had to go through all of the information I had gathered and pick out the facts that I found to be the most interesting. Now, as I said, there was a gigantic list – elephants are incredibly complex creatures, after all – however, I chose the facts I thought kids would find the most fascinating, and of all of them, one stood out, and it concerns elephant poo. Yes… elephant poo!

Elephant Poo?

It turns out that because elephants eat a highly fibrous diet, their poo can be turned into paper! In fact, the average elephant produces around 150kg of poo each day, which is enough to make about 115 sheets of paper. How incredible is that?

How is Elephant Poo Paper Made?

The elephant poo is gathered and cleaned thoroughly so that only the fibres are left. Afterwards, it is boiled and sterilised to kill off any nasty bacteria. Then it’s dried until it looks a lot like hay.

Next, the fibres are mixed with water, and sometimes some other non-wood pulp mixes like hemp or flax fibre. Occasionally, if required, a dye is added before the mixture is drained and pressed into large balls.

The pulp balls are then placed on mesh trays in a water bath and spread out into even layers before being removed from the bath and dried in the sun. When the paper has completely dried out, it is ready to use!

I hope some of you found this as interesting as I did. As far as I knew, paper could only be made from trees. This is such a great environmentally friendly way of doing it.

Well, that’s post 29 done. I look forward to reading all your facts; perhaps I’ll learn about something new!

Thank you, as always, for spending some time with me here today. It means a lot!

Until next time,

George

© 2023 GLT

Categories: life, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

Tags: blogging, challenge, Elephant, Fact, interesting, paper, poo, Wednesday, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge