It seems the folks over at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Site in Beijing, China are taking the three Rs of recycling a bit too seriously.

They plan to turn panda dung into odor-free souvenirs.

Panda dung bookmarks. Panda dung cute panda statues. Talk about turning one man's waste - or rather, one panda's - into one man's miscellany!

While this sounds a bit unhygienic - after all, poop is poop - Jing Shimin, assistant director of the panda breeding base, says that it won't stink as much (or at all) like the droppings we're normally exposed to. The reason for this is that 70% of panda dung is actually undigested bamboo.

So how are they made, anyway? The process is remarkably simple. First, the dung is carefully selected, then smashed up into a manageable pulp, then dried, and THEN sterilized at a whopping 300 degrees Celsius (that's 572 degrees Fahrenheit). This process ensures that the actual merchandise made from the dung would pose no health risks whatsoever.

The treated dung will then be handled by a local handicraft company, where much of the souvenir-making will take place.

Certainly very creative thinking from the people taking care of these cute yet endangered creatures. It's a double boon for pandas - not only are their habitats getting cleaned, but the money that would have been spent on removing their dung (6,000 yuan, or US $770 per month) would be invested in taking better care of them. Nice.

Poop souvenirs in, garments made out of animal fur out. Updates as we get them! Or as fast the pandas can make them.

What's cute, cuddly, pink, and fluffy - and don't say a Pink PSP. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, at least  650 million pets arrive legally, a list which includes kangaroos, exotic fishes and birds. Illegally, we're looking at larger numbers of exotic pets landing stateside in an international black market that earns up to US$ 10 billion a year - second only to the drug trade.

"A wild animal will be in the bush, and in less than a week it's in a little girl's bedroom," says Darin Carroll, an inspector working for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Venomous pets aside, the biggest killer Carroll's after is disease - exotic pets from Africa, Asia and South America can potentially carry equally exotic disease, possibly passed on from pets to the humans who handle them..."Outbreak" comes to mind.

The list should give ideas on what's already landed due to the exotic pet trade:

• Hantavirus,which is carried by rodents and can cause acute respiratory problems or death, has sickened at least 317 Americans and killed at least 93 since 1996.
• More than 770 people have been sickened since 2000 with tularemia, a virulent disease that can be contracted from rabbits, hamsters and other rodents. At least three people have died.
• Three transplant patients in New England died last year after receiving organs from a human donor who had been infected with the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus from a pet hamster. There have been 34 U.S. cases since 1993.

Other potentially lethal diseases as of 2001 include the Avian flu, which was found on eagles being smuggled into Europe; SARS, which was detected in cats in a Chinese market; monkeypox, a variation of smallpox that Carroll found on infected U.S. citizens in the Midwest who had been handling rodents smuggled from Africa.

The biggest problem with this growing trade is its lack of personnel - at present the government has just 120 full-time inspectors to check incoming wildlife for any potential disease. What confounds this growing problems is lack of government oversight for it, along with the local populace's lack of awareness.