Their tag line may be a little cryptic and in broken English, but it gets the point across, “With bamboo’s fragrance, send you a special souvenir from panda’s poo-poo.” Yes, you read that correctly, poo-poo.
Chengdu Panda Homeland Trade Co. has paired up with the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding to put all that panda waste to good use. A single adult male panda will produce approximately 45lbs of waste per day; using the 400 tons (nearly 882,000 pounds!) of panda poo that the Chengdu Research Base produces every year, the company makes unforgettable and unique souvenirs. The panda poo products are made in a day-long process that involves separating the fibrous material from the poo, boiling it to ensure it’s clean, bleaching it, and letting it dry in the sun. Then, the remaining clean fibers are used to make several different manure mementos.
The company claims that the products do not smell of feces, but bamboo instead. Considering the panda only digests around 20% of its food intake, it’s quite believable that their poo probably smells a lot like bamboo.
Some of the handcrafted wares are surprisingly beautiful, especially the paper products.
Then, there are the more interesting items…
