And the latest garden must-have is ... zoo poo

WASTE not, want not is the motto for our times. Now Edinburgh Zoo has taken it to heart. Up till recently it was sending its zoo poo to landfill at a cost of £50 a tonne. Now, thanks to some entrepreneurial flair by a student from the Business Environment Partnership, it is recycling its animal dung for use on allotments round Scotland's capital. Droppings from zebras, camels, warthogs and rhinoceros are set to provide a powerful boost for vegetable growers.

'Zoo poo' is widely regarded as being more potent than ordinary compost because it is collected from all "hoofstock" animals. These have several stomachs, which means the dung is well digested and does not carry diseases like that from carnivores. The result is an especially rich and healthy mixture.

But the zoo's 'poo change' may have further to go. Entrepreneurial flair could see zoo poo packaged into branded bags and offered round nurseries and garden centres where it would command a premium price. Marketing students seeking experience could be brought in to grade the zoo poo into different price-point categories: "superior", "de luxe" "Ultra or "5 Star Premium unleaded". The bags could soon become status symbols as gardeners argue over optimal brand application: rhino on rose beds, camel on vegetable patches, zebra for early season potatoes – and warthog for that extra fragrant hanging basket.