Disgusting is the word that comes to mind when you see elephant’s waste. But who would have thought that the waste of the largest mammal can be made into fibre composite board which is as good as factory board?
It was Ragil Widyorini, S.T., M.T., D.Agr.Sc., Forest Product lecturer at Faculty of Forestry UGM that has processed elephant waste into composite board.
“Elephant waste contains fibre that can be recycled and turned into composite,” she told journalists on Wednesday (28/3) in Biomaterial Engineering Lab of the Faculty.
Ragil explained the idea came up from the complaint raised by an alumnus, Agus Sudibyo Jati, working in the Pasuruan Safari Park in East Java. He found it hard to resolve the problems of great amounts of elephant waste in the Park. Indeed, some has been made into fertilisers, but still there is much left.
“From there I tried to turn the waste into a valuable thing, which is the material of composite board,” said the biocomposite technology expert.
Ragil said the elephants in the Pasuruan Safari Park is fed with giant grass that contains a great deal of cellulose. But the elephant can only digest some 30-45%, so the remaining 55-70% are indigestible. She assumed this was potential to be made into composite.
You need to go through some stages to get this composite board. First, the elephant waste is cleaned under running water. Then it is dried to prevent from fungi. Afterwards, the dried waste is mixed with glue and baked in the oven at 80 Celcius degree for several hours to reduce the water content. The result is molded and heat pressed at 180 - 200 Celcius degree for 10 minutes.
“Currently, we make the composite board sized 25x25 cm that is 1 cm thick,” she said.
Ragil explained to make that size of board, it needs 500 gram material consisting of 400 gram waste and 100 gram of glue from the particle’s dry weight .
“If you want to make a 1x1 meter composite that is 1 cm thick and density 0.8 g/cm3, you need 7 kg of waste,” she said.
In a day the elephant produces about 100 kg, hence 1x1 meter sized 6-7 composite boards each day,” she said.
Ragil uses citric acid based glue that has been developed by Faculty of Forestry UGM and University of Kyoto. This proved to produce better quality of material than if using the regular formaldehyde glue.
After doing a series of tests since 2014, a standard composite board was finally achieved. Bend tes, pull test, wet bend test and soaking test show that the elephant waste composite board has higher quality than the standard determined by the Japanese Industrial. The waste board is not only environmentally friendly but also an alternative to factory board.
“The composite board can be made into furniture and walls,” she said.
Vice-Dean of Research and Community Service, Dr. Muhammad Ali Imron, S.Hut., M.Sc., said this was potential to be further developed and produced in big scale.
“Elephants are grazers or consume grass in a large amount that they produce much waste, too, which is potential to be turned into composite board,” said the wildlife conservation expert.
Imron said if successful, the product not only serves as an alternative to composite board, but also promotes elephant conservation campaigns.
“So, the people that buy this product will not only buy the material, but the profit will also go to elephant conservation,” he said.