THE first creator of paper, Cai Lun, would not have thought of using horse droppings as material for his creation. Cai Lun, living in the Han Dynasty under Emperor He more than 20 centuries ago, produced paper from pulp made of mulberry tree bark, straw, and bits of cloth.

Long after that, this year, three students from the Muhammadiyah I Babat High School in Lamongan, East Java, produced paper using horse manure as the raw material. "The smell is