Sheep Poo Paper

The BBC reported September 7, 2006 (HT: WorldNetDaily), that a Welsh company has won a £20,000 Millennium Award for "social entrepreneurship". Creative Paper Wales has a line of Sheep Poo Paper products made from recycled sheep manure.

After the sheep droppings are collected, they are sterilised, washed and mixed with other recycled paper.

This is then turned into the finished paper and cardboard while the washing water is distributed to local growers as concentrated fertiliser.

Founders Lawrence Toms, 38, from Rhondda and Lez Paylor, 38, from Caerphilly, said they had been keen to develop an idea which would create a manufacturing company which would be uniquely Welsh and could produce a product that foreign imports could not compete with.

They also wanted to set up a low-tech company with minimal capital which was also environmentally friendly.

Who thinks of this stuff?

I've had a theory about the bizarre use of animal items for making other products--particularly the Scottish bagpipes. I believe the Scots invented whiskey before they invented bagpipes.

On a bender, one particularly inebriated lad, sitting around a peat fire eating mutton with his friends, happened to notice the sheep's stomach lying unattended and decided to have a bit of sport. He picked it up, blew into it, and squished it against his ribs with his upper arm, making that flatulent noise that young boys and drunks delight in.

One of his friends, not to be outdone, takes out a pipe and attaches it to one end of the stomach with some gut-twine and proceeds to blow out a tune.

They enhance it, perfect it, make up melodies. But when all is said and done, it started with vast quantities of Scotch Whiskey.

Sheep Poo Paper is like that.

Sheep Poo Paper comes from the stupor that comes after the whiskey has had most of its fun. It comes when the paper-maker is left staring at the ground, and he sees the sheep poo platelets replete with grass fibers, and after he stares at them for a long time he thinks, "Huh. You could make paper out of that."

And when the whiskey has worn off and the hangover is reduced to memory, he tells his co-workers at the paper-making company about the hysterical thought he had when he was looking at the sheep droppings. And somebody says they should try it. And somebody else nominates them for an award.

It all starts with whiskey. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.