Musk ox poop + paper = art that’s good for the environment
A Recycled Paper Journey
by Heather Laird
In 1993, Cyndi Foster was a teacher in Cambridge Bay, in Canada’s central Arctic. She was looking for activities she could do with her students that would spark their creativity, and teach them environmental awareness at the same time. With this in mind, Cyndi went to the Great Northern Arts Festival in Inuvik.
Among the many workshops she attended was one on recycled paper making presented by Evelyn David of Edmonton’s Indigo Print and Paper. Evelyn mentioned that in some parts of Africa and India, elephant dung is processed into paper as a way of recovering the plant fibre it contains. This is a necessity because the tree population in these areas is dwindling or non-existent, and there are no other sources of wood pulp to make paper. The elephant dung makes a strong and attractive paper that is sold through the export market. Cyndi immediately recognized the similarities between the treeless plains of Africa and the treeless Canadian Arctic, and a new paper-making project was born.
Herbivores are walking pulp mills
Back home in Cambridge Bay, Cyndi set up a small-scale paper recycling mill and set her students to work collecting musk ox dung.
There are practical reasons for incorporating animal dung into paper, even if trees are available. Conventional paper making uses large amounts of water, energy and often-harmful acids to break down plant fibres into pulp that can make paper. As Cyndi likes to point out, herbivores are “walking pulp mills.” The animal’s gut will break down cellulose in a natural way, and the processed pulp can be removed from the dung by boiling and soaking. As long as only dried dung from strictly plant-eating animals is used, there is little to no health hazard in making “poop paper.”
The individual characteristics of each animal can contribute to the finished paper. One of Cyndi’s favourite papers was made from porcupine droppings; porcupines eat pine bark, and the soaking process “smelled like a cedar sauna!” she enthused. They don’t all smell that good, but the finished paper will have no smell, since the smell is contained in oil-like compounds that will not bond with the paper.
Cyndi’s first experiment with community paper-making in Cambridge Bay was a popular success, and along the way, the students got to learn about the uses of different fibres and the interactions of their local plants and animals. As well, recycled paper making was appropriate to a community where all electricity comes from diesel generators. Processing recycled paper and musk ox dung needed only three to ten minutes of electricity, where conventional paper making could take eight hours of power use.
Just about anything organic
Cyndi eventually moved to Canmore, Alberta, where she opened a studio to make and sell this type of environmentally friendly “Earth Paper”. Earth Paper has incorporated just about anything organic and plant-based, including coffee grounds, vegetable scraps, dried flowers, leaves, and fabric scraps, along with the ever-popular animal poop.
Cyndi now lives in the Interlake area of Manitoba, where she collects droppings from the local horses, cows, and her neighbour’s mule to add to paper. She was featured on the CBC- TV program “On the Road Again”, along with a couple who had Earth Paper wedding invitations made with contributions from their farm’s horses. Cyndi also sells her paper and gives workshops through the Selkirk Art Gallery. A typical homemade paper mix starts with paper from a recycling depot, and then plants and other materials are added.
Earth Paper is unique and an individual herb enthusiast might want to incorporate dried leaves into their paper, and a quilter could use favourite fabric pieces. Recycling paper the Earth Paper way is creative, fun, and doesn’t cost the environment. Cyndi Foster offers a whole new way of looking at the paper you use and take for granted every day.
For more information, you can e-mail Cyndi Foster at earthpaper@hotmail.com.
