A beautiful and unique photo album made by skilled and creative artisans using elephant dung paper from the Maximus Elephant Conservation Trust.
Each photo album is one of a kind as it made by hand and each purchase helps the good work of the Conservation Trust to keep going.
Benefits
Elephant dung paper is the ultimate in recycling - it's made up of 75% dung and 25% recycled paper, with the elephants in charge of the pulping process of paper-making as they digest their food!
- Attractive and colourful
- Only natural dyes are used
- The dung paper is acid free
- Each page is a different colour of dung paper and has a protective sheet to protect photos/scrap albums.
- Handmade and fairly traded
- Improves the lives of elephants through the foundation
Yes, it is suitable for vegans (if you don't mind a product containing the dung of an elephant!)
Dimensions:
Each photo album has 10 pages which would hold a standard 7 x 5 cm photo.
Photos can be put in with photo corners that are available in any good photography shop, with spray mount or simple glue.
How is Elephant Dung Paper made?
The process of making elephant dung paper is a little different to making regular handmade paper. The fibres are pulped by the elephant, instead of by hand or machine, whilst they are digesting, then the ready-made pulp comes out the back!
The elephant dung is collected then vigorously boiled with margosa leaves, which are a natural disinfectant. They are then mixed with 25% recycled paper, resulting in our beautiful elephant dung paper. The coarseness and shade of the paper is entirely dependent on the elephants’ diet, making each sheet as unique as the elephant that produced it.
About Eco Maximus
Maximus has its workshop in the grounds of the Millennium Elephant Foundation (MEF), a wonderful small charity that cares for sick, old and disabled elephants. The foundation is also working hard to resolve the conflict between elephants and local communities, a critical concern as the elephants' natural habitat decreases and they turn to eating farmers' crops.
Working with initiatives like Maximus, they are able to show the positive relationship local economies can have with these amazing animals - a simple example of this is that they pay villagers to collect the elephant dung which is used to make the paper.