WOMBAT POO STORY A LOAD OF CRAP

A bad news, good news story from the ABC. First the bad news:

The industrial town of Burnie in north-west Tasmania has been hit time and time again by job cuts but one industry is going from strength to strength.

Last week another 280 jobs were slashed from the town's main employer, Caterpillar, and over the years, thousands of jobs have been lost from the Pulp and Paper Mill in Burnie.

It used to employ 4,000 people but now just 300 locals work there and the paper mill is so run down it could soon be closed.

Now the good news:

But another company in town is making handmade paper out of a material no one else wants - wombat scats.

The natural-looking paper is a hit.

Never fear, the wombat turds aren't produced in a factory wombat-battery setting, rather being gathered from where they were deposited in the wild. Unfortunately, at $2.50 a sheet ($2.00 in bulk) demand for the paper isn't great: one wombat (Nugget) produces more than enough. The "booming" "wombat poo paper industry" consists of one producer, the creatively named Creative Paper, staffed by just four people. It's great that a small company has found its niche but unemployed Tasmanians are unlikely to give a damn.