A while back I was flipping through a catalogue that came with a magazine publication that discusses topical issues. Often the products featured in this catalogue are environmentally friendly or fair trade and/or about educating about these types of good things.I find products from such sources interesting because often you find unusual things you would not think existed.

Now, like I said, that was a while back and I actually don't remember off the top of my head the other items in the product range but I do remember seeing one very unusual and also interesting item: It was a notebook made with paper that was created from elephant dung.

I did not think dung or faeces could be used in such a way prior to seeing this, but I believe there was an explanation saying (and this is my paraphrase) that because elephants have a very dry and vegetarian diet their dung is not all that wet, stinky, mushy and gross unlike many other animals. After adding water and probably some other stuff to the dung, flattening it, and drying it, the final product can be used as paper. It is environmentally friendly because it is essentially using something that would not have any other use and is always in 'production' (as long as elephants live) and is an alternative to using paper made from wood, which as we all hopefully know comes from cut down trees. According to the catalogue's description, it also has a smooth texture.

A while later I stumbled across a video on youtube which mentioned other uses for faeces (not just elephants') and that was an eye opener. If I find the video again, which I can't seem to find at present, I'll link it here....but some of the uses I could remember were fuel for fires, and as a building material for walls of buildings and of course as manure or fertiliser.

So, this got me wondering, does anyone know of any other unusual uses for other stuff, and of course not just poo but anything that is not a typical use for that said thing? This can include something you've come up with yourself with everyday household stuff too.