Pooped out?: A new Chinese business venture hopes to convert Panda poop into attractive souvenirs that Summer Olympic visitors will buy next year.One of my favorite volunteers here at the museum does a lot of activities with artificial scat: that’s science lingo for animal poop.

I guess I’ve been hanging out with him too much, cause this story just jumped off the screen screaming for my attention.

A new company in Sichuan, China, is making odor-free souvenirs for next year’s Summer Olympic games out of Panda poop. You’ll have your choice of everything from dung-y bookmarks to miniature statues of the animals that produced the medium.

"We used to spend at least $770 a month to get rid of the droppings but now they can be lucrative," Jing Shimin, assistant to the base director, was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency. About 40 pandas are housed at the site and put out nearly a ton of panda poop a year.

A lot of production work goes into the process. All dung is smashed, dried and sterilized at 572 degrees F. The finished products are dyed giving them a variety of colors. The Olympic figurines will show the Pandas posed in a number of athletic positions.