Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hi
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, I'm Lauren vogel Bomb, and today's episode is
Speaker 1: another classic from our archives. For many of us, life
Speaker 1: is increasingly digital and paper increasingly rare. But what if
Speaker 1: paper could be more environmentally friendly and a little grosser
Speaker 1: at the same time. Hey, brain Stuff, Lauren folk Bomb
Speaker 1: Here it's become an evergreen piece of advice for aspiring writers.
Speaker 1: Put your button the chair and write a first draft,
Speaker 1: no matter how crappy. Now, thanks to a breakthrough in
Speaker 1: chemical technology, that first draft can be literal crap, or
Speaker 1: at least printed on it. Researchers announced at a meeting
Speaker 1: of the American Chemical Society in March that it's possible
Speaker 1: to turn manure from cows, elephants, goats, and other grass
Speaker 1: munchers into yes paper. As you may already know, paper
Speaker 1: is made from cellulos that usually comes from trees. Not
Speaker 1: every place has a lot of trees, But as we
Speaker 1: all know, everybody poops, and some of those poopers leave
Speaker 1: patties around for stepping in or collecting if you're of
Speaker 1: a mind to collect poop like these. A c S
Speaker 1: scientists are one of the researchers who presented this idea
Speaker 1: at the a c S meeting. In question, Alexander Bismarck, PhD.
Speaker 1: Was driving around crete and watched goats eat grass and
Speaker 1: poop it out. He thought that maybe the goats were
Speaker 1: doing to the grass what paper manufacturers due two trees,
Speaker 1: turn it into cellulose that could be made into paper,
Speaker 1: because of course that's what you think of while you're
Speaker 1: driving around an idyllic island. Cretion excretions. Some animals, it
Speaker 1: turns out, do a pretty good job pooping out paper
Speaker 1: ready cellulose, depending on which animal is doing the manure manufacturing,
Speaker 1: Bismarck said in a press statement. Up to that manure
Speaker 1: is cellulose, which is then easily accessible to make paper
Speaker 1: from trees, The trees have to be ground way down
Speaker 1: by a machine into a pulp before being made into
Speaker 1: proper paper. Goats do that work for free every day
Speaker 1: of their grass munchoned, poop leaven lives. The only thing
Speaker 1: they require is more grass, which makes more poop, which
Speaker 1: makes more paper, and they need some water to drink
Speaker 1: and maybe scritches on their little chins. But either way,
Speaker 1: it's a more environmentally friendly process than traditional paper making,
Speaker 1: and it's not just goats. The researchers moved onto piles
Speaker 1: of patties from horses, cows, and elephants. To elephants in
Speaker 1: wildlife parks in Africa are number one at going number
Speaker 1: two at the San Francisco Zoo alone, an adult male
Speaker 1: African elephant can produce three hundred pounds. That's thirty six
Speaker 1: kilos of pooh. That's a lot of potential paper. The
Speaker 1: first uses for this poop paper would probably be industrial.
Speaker 1: According to the researchers, it could filter wastewater before it's
Speaker 1: released into the environment, which seems fitting. But poop pyrus,
Speaker 1: or nanopaper, as the researchers rather boringly call it, could
Speaker 1: also be used to write on. So don't give up,
Speaker 1: fellow writers, Our first drafts could soon be really truly crappy.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article poop Pyrus Eco
Speaker 1: friendly paper made from poop on how stuff Works dot com,
Speaker 1: written by Kristen Hall Geisler. Brain Stuff is production of
Speaker 1: by Heart Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot com,
Speaker 1: and it's produced by Tyler Clang. For more podcasts my
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