Eco-Friendly Park in Thailand Is Making Paper…From Elephant Poop!

With environmentalists up in arms over multinational corporations’ prodigious rape of forests to produce a variety of products, one place in Asia is trying to turn the plunder of natural resources on its head by doing quite the opposite.

A park in Thailand has seized on the opportunity to recycle its waste and transform them into useful paper products as attractive as they is eco-friendly.

And the source of the paper?

Elephant poop!

From stationery to bound journals to greeting cards, and even bouquets of paper roses, the eco tourism attraction in Chiang Mai, Thailand with the humorously literal name of Elephant POOPOOPAPER Park is drawing thousands of visitors through its lush gardens where eight pavilions display each process of turning elephant waste products into useful things of beauty.

The Elephant POOPOOPAPER Park sits on a naturally built outdoor museum where Thailand’s rich history of traditional paper-making and handicrafts production are showcased at its best.

Even better, guests are invited to roll up their sleeves and actually participate in the poop-to-paper making process.

It also has a gift shop with a tongue-in-cheek name called “The POO-tique.”

Visitors can browse and purchase from among the colorfully dizzying array of paper products proudly made from elephant waste.

Nearby, a cafe serves refreshments, such as the popular POO POO Chip cookies, which thankfully aren’t made of poop, despite its name, but, like the rest of the food offered in the park, have been sourced out from its rich organic gardens.

As the park continues to stress, no trees were cut down to create its paper products. As well as being tree-free, the paper making process does not include bleaching or other chemicals, and only edible food coloring and soy-based inks are used for graphics and printing.

The sustainable tourism the Elephant POOPOOPaper Park has managed to cultivate puts great importance on caring for the environment, while helping communities and people work together without harming nature.

H/T: Poo Poo Paper Park