Elephant dung paper factory in Ban Ta Klang elephant village, Surin

Today I visited the elephant dung paper factory in Ban Ta Klang. The factory is withing the elephant kingdom project, and it is located at the Ta Klang forest temple Ah-Tiang (with its own elephant grave yard), is easily accessed by foot after a 20 minutes walk.

The process is divided into 5 steps: washing, boiling, spinning, bleeching, screen-spreading and drying.

First the dung balls are washed in a concrete pool, where waste material is washed away, until fibers remain.

The dung gets boiled for a couple of hours, over a fire.

 Its then taken to the spinner.

 After spinning, its boiled with clorine, getting bleeched to an almost white color.

Then scoped into a bucket...

...shaped into round balls...

 scaled (should weigh apr 200 grams)

And then poured into the frame concrete where it may get colored...

Frames with a fine net, in order to shape the dung into an rectangle.

The frame is put down in the solution...

Everything inside the frame is now ready to be dried. Once dried, it is PAPER!

 which can be used for perfect drawing or scetch paper...

or made into books.

This Youtube video is about the Surin elephant kingdom project and the dung factory.

The project also has a facebook page, please visit Dungpaper Surin to learn more!