Plan to Make Panda Poo Turn a Profit for Research

From The Australian:

THEY are notoriously picky about their food and suffer from an exceptionally low sex drive. But when it comes to poo, pandas have few peers. Entrepreneurial Chinese are looking for ways to make a profit from the 20kg of excrement produced each day by a single adult male, and help the endangered animals pay their way. Officials at Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Base are working on a scheme to convert the fibre-rich droppings into high-quality paper. Pandas, which live mainly on a diet of bamboo, absorb less than 20 per cent of what they eat. Staff at the Chengdu base in Sichuan province, southwest China, are talking to local paper mills to find ways of making products from the panda waste, from greeting cards to bookmarks, notebooks and even fridge magnets.

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