From Poo to Paper: An Assam Story

In India, Sri Lanka and Thailand, small entrepreneurs have chosen the ecological route to preservation and waste management by using almost the same methods to convert elephant and rhino dung mixed with waste cloth into paper, since most of the grasses these animals eat are not fully digested and constitute a large part of their waste.

The use of dung began in Jaipur with the enterprising and innovative efforts of Vijender Singh who offers demonstrations of paper making and sells through his company Elly Express, under the brand Haathi Chaap (Elephant Imprint).

Mahesh Bora, a retired coal-mining engineer read about the elephant dung enterprise in Jaipur. Having been a nature lover all his life, and finding resonance with the idea of working on a livelihood project in his home state of Assam, he decided if Rajasthan offered dung, his own state offered both rhino and elephant dung in plenty from its own jungles.

When farming and agriculture were scarce, animals had the jungles to roam freely for food and shelter. Today they confront farmers as aggressors and pile their fields with dung.

Since elephants and rhinos were plentiful in Bora’s home state of Assam, he was inspired to set up a handmade paper making unit near home.

Here two women workers, Malavika Raha and Mallika Kalita, examine the cleaned, washed and boiled dung.

Rhino dung is highly fibrous. It is available only in legally protected forest areas. Access is occasional and limited but elephant dung is more freely available.

Bananas are plentiful in Assam, and comes in handy when creating products out of dung paper. The long stalks of the banana tree are soaked in a natural water body till they turn brown from green.

Dried banana stalks are then made into strips for use as book covers. They are also converted into fibre for paper.

Hosiery and other textile waste lying in sacks behind the shed are shredded finely before being put through the pulping machine.

Zakir Ali runs the pulping machine that pulps the shredded textile waste at the Elrhino factory.

Rhino or elephant dung is mixed with the textile pulp.

As in regular handmade paper making processes, each sheet is strained from the trough full of pulp, laid on a table and layered with muslin cloth to separate them.

In the rhino and dung paper making unit in Assam, a simple hand worked machine is used to press a pile of sheets of paper and cloth to dry out the water and flatten them.

The cloth separating each sheet has to be removed individually.

Mallika and Malavika at the handmade paper making unit in Assam are part of a small, but well-coordinated team of workers.

The style of drying paper at Elrhino's production facility, is broadly similar across handmade paper making units in different states, however in Sikkim each sheet is then pasted on individual trays and dried without any further calendaring.

Unlike other units where a separate group or person works on each part of the process, in the Assam unit a small group of workers know every stage of the tasks at hand in converting dung to clean sheets of paper.

The sheets of paper are counted and categorized as they are stacked. Most handmade paper has tell-tale edges which look frayed, but is actually because shreds of textile pulp remain uneven at the edges.

Rhino dung paper is discernible by its smaller flecks of darker fibre that gets mixed with the textile pulp. Elephant dung residue is more stringy and fibrous.

Narrow bamboo strips are cut with a simple knife.

Bamboo strips are inserted into the paper to form a textured surface for a product.

When inserted into paper, bamboo strips form a designed surface. This becomes a decorative carrier bag for gifting a bottle of wine.

Locally procured water hyacinth is used to make an attractive cover for a notebook containing paper made of rhino or elephant dung made in the Elrhino factory.

Banana and bamboo strips interwoven with handmade paper at the back form a frame and body for an eco-friendly table lamp.

Waste silk threads from a weaving establishment nearby add an interesting natural surface pattern to dung paper.

Green silk threads in chemical dyed colours offer a colour range to decorate elephant dung paper.

When the leaf is removed, a delicate impression is left behind.

Since all these processes are done by hand, randomness, non-standardization and a closeness to nature’s imperfections, impurities and beauty are its hallmark.

Carrier bags for gifting are made particularly attractive with uneven leaf impressions to enhance the appeal of their dung paper.

Notebook covers bring in a bit of bawdy humour. It shows cartoon drawings of an elephant and a rhino emitting gases.

A notebook made at the Elrhino factory tells a funny story of an elephant and a rhino helping each other go through the process of providing poo for paper. Naughty, but fun!

Read more about Handmade Paper industry of India:

- Elephant dung paper in Rajasthan
- Mountain plants to paper in Sikkim