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