Believe it or not, you can make paper from goat poo (though it may be a somewhat foolish enterprise).
I make handmade picture books out of waste paper - admin documents and junk mail- I like the recycling process of turning waste into something beautiful. I often hand make the paper ( you can see some of my handmade books here https://obscurewonders.com/handmade-books/).
Paper can be made from all sorts of things; trees, leaves, hemp, cotton. When I was in South Africa, I came across elephant poo paper. Apparently the elephants chop up the grass and plants when they eat them which in theory makes it easier to make paper from. I had made paper out of a lot of things but never thought of making it out of poo, but I am interested in the recycling process so it did make a lot of sense…
In the summer, I was staying with some friends in South Wales, Emily and Jim. They own three rescue goats ( Maeve, Maurice and Max). It was a nice day. I was looking down onto the valley from the hill their home sits on, when it occurred to me, if you can make paper from elephant poo, why not goat poo?
I looked it up online and found it has been made from sheep poo, but nobody had mentioned anything about goats. That wasn’t going to stop me.
My friends found the idea amusing, I think, though were somewhat baffled by my desire to do this. We went down to the field together, clambered through the fence trying to prevent the goat-attacking-German-Shepherd from getting through. The goats were first curious about our venture, but once they discovered what I was doing - collecting a load of their poo - they became somewhat agitated. I did most of the actual collecting, my friends tried to prevent one Max, a particularly aggressive goat, from ramming my bottom. Emily, the goat tamer, pointed out good piles of poo whilst holding Max’s horns back. We collected the poo and escaped the field. We got loads!
Stored safely in a large plastic container, Steve and I got it back to London. It didn’t smell too bad. I placed it in a large old pot, used for paper-making, and boiled it for an hour. It didn’t seem to do much. I mushed it up with the back of an old wooden spoon and boiled it again. And again. The things goats eat! There were bits of plastic toys, wire, old nails - I couldn’t believe it.
Goat poo in this state isn’t dirty or dangerous, goats are (mainly) herbivores and it’s been boiled, and boiled, and boiled.
Finally it started to break down and I made, a somewhat brown and muddy looking paper from it. I’ve included some photos of the process below but if you’d like a good guide to paper making try John Plowman’s Papermaking Techniques book.
I don’t think making goats poo paper is going to catch on somehow. Emma and Jim in Wales were interested to know how the paper making went, I offered to send them some sheets, they said “just send us a photograph”
