COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (JP) - Looking for different stationery? Try out this Sri Lankan company's paper, made from 75% elephant dung.

According to Rohan Martis, a marketer for Maximus, "fully digested fibre gives the paper a smooth finish, while half-digested fiber makes the paper coarser." The sheets have varying colour and texture, depending on the elephant's diet, age and dental health.

Enough supply? The dung is collected from the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage (46 miles east of Colombo) which has 67 elephants. S. Mendis, the Maximus veterinarian, says that the orphanage produces 6 truck loads of elephant dung when requested - more than enough to meet supply needs (and it helps keep the orphanage clean by having 'someone take it off their hands').

Why bother? A century ago, 15,000 elephants roamed Sri Lanka's jungles. Maximus is asking people to use its products to help the country's dwindling elephant population (now @ 3,000), largely due to deforestation and ivory poaching.

Thailand, where the elephant is the national animal, also makes this paper. Former Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has presented President George Bush with elephant dung paper - the elephant being the symbol of Bush's Republican Party.

We at joe-ks.com think this is not just a bum deal - it's a dung deal...

PS: What do you get when you cross a Pinnawela Elephant with a Rhinocerous?
Click here for the answer!