ANIMAL MANURE AS RAW MATERIAL FOR PACKAGING PAPER: A

COMPARATIVE STUDY

Baby Rucelle B. Cogal

Aliah Nicole R. Tejano
Princess T. Zafra
 CHAPTER 1

1.0 Introduction

According to several sources, even with the consideration of today’s generation’s

usage of digitization, the paper demand is predicted to increase at 6.78% in the next decades.
The main use of paper, which was previously used as a tool for communication, had only
been diverted to what it is now, as packaging paper. Paper packaging materials can be easily
reused and recycled in comparison to other materials such as plastics and metals. This is why
paper packaging is considered to be one of the most environment-friendly and economic
forms of packaging.

Another one of the potential reasons why there is a sudden shift in the paper market is
how a lot of the countries today aim to be more environment-friendly in a cause to avoid the
potentially-harmful effects of climate change. For this reason, a lot of governments try to
implement regulations and laws that could, hopefully, help us stray from the path of
impending doom. Some of these laws involve the usage of paper packaging materials, instead
of plastic ones. This eventually led to a greater demand for paper packaging materials.
Naturally, paper manufacturers would decide to switch to the more in-demand product to gain
more profits.

1.1 Statement of the Problem

Proper disposal of human and animal waste has long been a major sanitation issue.
Changes in animal production, influenced as a response to the need for greater production
efficiency and to the changes in per capita consumption (which include confinement feeding
of livestock and an increase in animals per production), resulted in the accumulation of
wastes that have become point sources of potential water and air pollution. Manure
production, estimated using a nutrient balance approach that assumes the amount of feed
intake subtracted by the numerical value of animal retention is equivalent to the amount of
excreted manure, by livestock and poultry in the Philippines reach 13, 057, 204 tons per year.
Most of these discharges, including wastewater and runoff from manure fields and effluents
from a series of open animal waste disposable lagoons, cause pollution, especially if
uncontrolled.
 Supply networks like animal manure are more widely accessible and abundant among
other sources, unlike woodland resources that are rapidly depleting, making it more
susceptible to studies on usability due to the urgency of environmental distress. The
manufacture of paper from large masses of animal waste, especially those outputted by large
farms, provides an environment-friendly and economically-efficient alternative method in
waste management that revolves around the concept of the transformation of surplus (that
may be potentially harmful) into a resource that is high in demand.

1.2 Objectives of the Study

As we all know, forests are rapidly diminishing all around the world due to
deforestation and excessive cutting of trees. Papers are made from trees therefore, to help
lessen the cutting of trees, the researchers aimed to investigate the potential of animal manure
to be a raw material for paper and conduct a comparative study on different factors that can
affect the final product. The researchers also aimed to utilize only the animals found locally,
here in Butuan City. Specifically, this study aims to answer the following questions:

1. Which animal manure of the three different animals selected (goat, cow and
carabao) produces the best paper?

2. What is the best process to be used?

3. Would the paper produced be good enough to be a packaging paper such as

paper bags made from trees?

1.3 Hypothesis

1. The paper is of low quality in comparison to the quality of the paper we are
currently using for packaging.

2. The paper is described to be more frangible than the frangibility of the regular
packaging paper.

3. The paper’s usability is limited and is of little application when compared to the
usage of the standard packaging paper.
1.4 Definition of Terms

 Manure – waste of herbivore animals

 Paper – a thin material produced by pressing fibers of cellulose pulp derived from
wood, rags or grasses
 Packaging Paper – a type of paper used for packaging goods
 Cellulose Fiber – fibers with ethers of cellulose obtained from a bark, wood,
leaves, or from other plant-based material
 Herbivores – plant-eating animals
 Manure – animal dung or waste used for fertilizing land
 Faunae – fauna in singular, the animals living in a particular region or habitat
 Surplus – an amount of something left over when requirements have been met, an
excess of production or supply

1.5 Scope and Limitations

The scope of this study only involves herbivorous animals. Since cellulose fibers

come from plants, in order to be able to acquire more digested cellulose fibers for use, the

diet of the faunae in which we would extract the dung from should be all-vegetarian. In this

way, the excrement would essentially be only raw cellulose, the basic ingredient for the

creation of paper. This study will also be limited on animal dung from livestock and poultry

common in the Philippines, specifically in Butuan City, so that expected expenses would be

at the minimum, schedules would be less hectic, and target subjects would also be more

accessible.
 CHAPTER 2

2.1 Related Literature and Research Gap

Paper is a thin nonwoven material traditionally made from a combination of

milled plant and textile fibers. According to American Forest and Paper Association, paper

was first made in Lei-Yang, China by Ts'ai Lun, a Chinese court official, almost 2,000 years

ago. However, it was believed that the word “paper” comes from the Greek word “pápyros “

which is the name for the papyrus plant that mainly used by Egyptians.

There are a lot of articles and several research papers that discuss and investigate

animal manure as a raw material for paper. A study entitled Cellulose Nanopapers from

Elephant Manure focuses in discovering alternative to wood as raw material for natural

fibers is highly desirable, specifically in countries without access to large forest areas. The

study proposed elephant manure as potential source and demonstrates that by chemical

purification of elephant manure, micro-fibrillated cellulose can be isolated. The fibrils were

further mechanically refined and papers produced from these refined elephant manure

nanofibrils that were compared to the non-refined elephant manure papers and cellulose

nanopapers. Although the result shows that the papers made from elephant manure are not as

durable as papers made from trees, these were good enough to be used as an alternative and

suggests using other methods that will be able to make the raw material more durable.

In an article named Making Paper from Poop Offers a Solution to the World’s

Manure Problem (2018), a team of scientists from the University of Vienna, studied how

poop can be turned into paper. Their process is simple, cheap, and uses less energy and fewer

chemicals, which only involves extracting cellulose from manure. Not only that, the team is

also in the early stages of developing a two-step process that would capture methane from the

manure to generate electricity and then use the remains to produce paper.
 A feasibility study conducted by Cabardo, R., Daño, M. and 5 other members entitled

The Feasibility of Horse (Equus ferus caballus) Manure as an Alternative Source of Paper

(2013-2014), utilized horse manure as an alternative source of paper instead of trees. The

study provided a procedure that one can do manually, which is also simple and inexpensive.

The results concluded that horse manure is a suitable alternative source of paper aside from

trees. Just adding a large amount of chlorine will produce whiter results and using hand,

rolling pin or iron as primary equipment for flatting does not improve the texture of the

paper. Mass production is also recommended to determine the feasibility of the developed

products in large scale production.

However, in recent times, this area is decreasingly less explored these days, which

encouraged us to continue the research, since most of the focus goes to the technological

advancements that could mitigate these problems such as the use of sewage treatment plants

and recycled synthetic fibers for paper.

2.2 Synthesis of Gaps

The studies mainly used manure and dungs from animals not easily found in Butuan

City, such as elephant dung and horse manure. As mentioned from the related literature, a

team of scientist studied how manure can be turned to paper and according to a member

named Kathrin Weiland, manure of different animals vary. That is why we’ll conduct a

comparative study of three different animal manures.

 CHAPTER 3

3.1 Research Design

3.2 Experimental Lay-out

3.3 Data Gathering Procedure

3.4 Statistical Treatments