7:13pm Monday 25th August 2008
By George Hamilton
People in Blackbird Leys can breathe easily again - their estate no longer smells of elephant dung.
But the strange whiff had a purpose - for one man was making brass from muck, quite literally.
A section of the estate has smelled for the past fortnight thanks to Pegasus Road resident Russell Price.
Mr Price, 62, who works for the Church Mission Society, ordered 50kg of the dung from Whipsnade Zoo as part of a project to make paper from elephant faeces.
For days he boiled the poo in a steel cauldron in order to turn it into a pulp suitable for making more than 500 sheets.
Mr Price used "big balls of elephant poo". He added: "It has a strong, healthy, slightly acrid odour. We told the neighbours we were going to be washing the elephant dung in the garden, but they are lovely understanding people, so it was okay."
Mr Price and his wife Sue had the arduous task of washing the dung by hand in order to separate fibres which were suitable for the paper making process.
The fibres were mixed with caustic soda and boiled in a vast steel cauldron in their garden for two hours.
The couple then washed the excrement again, leaving it in a porridge-like pulp.
Mr Price took the pulp to the Greenbelt Arts Festival in Cheltenham over the Bank Holiday weekend as part of his charity's link with African charity Neema Crafts.
Hundreds of people were invited to dip a gauze into the pulp, which turned into writing paper when it dried.
Mission partner Susie Hart set up the crafts workshop in Iringa, Tanzania, in 2003 to teach deaf people in the town how to recycle materials to make money.
She started with three workers, but now has 90 people with a range of disabilities employed at the workshop in Iringa.
The workshop produces paper, candles, textiles and beaded jewellery from a range of recycled materials.
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