-
Aug 27, 2005 10:08 am US/Central
-
Digg |
Facebook |
E-mail
|
Print
Man Tries To Save Elephants With Poopy Paper
by Jason DeRusha
Falcon Heights, Minn. (WCCO) ―
Inside the grandstand you will find some beautiful paper. It's gorgeous. And it's made almost entirely from elephant poop.
"And over here, this is my specialty paper," Karl Wald said to a customer. "This is what everybody likes."
Wald, also known as "Mr. Ellie Pooh," is from South St. Paul and has a Ph.D. in biochemistry.
Wald works with a group in Sri Lanka, where farmers often think of elephants as pests and kill them. Instead, Wald is trying to show the farmers how valuable the animals can be by turning dung into dollars.
"This way, the farmers don't want to shoot the elephants when they eat some of their pineapple or sugarcane," he said. "We want the farmers to look at these elephants like they're worth money."
Each pachyderm pumps out about 500 pounds of poop every day. It gets boiled, turned into pulp and crafted into paper.
"Because of what it is made out of, I was kind of curious what it would look and smell like," said Dee Goldman of East Bethel.
Customers like Mary Kaye Bozicevich already swear by the paper.
"It works really well," Bozicevich said. "It's wonderful paper. We use it for cards all the time."
It's Wald's first time at the State Fair and his bottom line is: This place doesn't stink.
"People have been coming by," he said. "Ninety-five percent don't make fun of me. The other five percent, they have things to say."
Wald is in the grandstand on the first floor, right near the bathrooms, coincidentally.
(© MMV, CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)