If you’re the kind of person who uses pencils often, you know how pesky those eraser shavings can get after a while. But what if you could put them all o good use, sort of?
Japanese media recently showcased the story of a Chinese teenager who has been saving all his eraser shavings since he was in first grade. Guang Ying originally appeared on TV five years ago, when he was in sixth grade and had already been saving all of his eraser shavings for five years. At the time, he had already created a round mass of shavings the size of a baseball, which was pretty impressive, albeit somewhat gross. But it was nothing compared to how it looks today…
Japanese television recently revisited Guang Ying, who is 18 years old now, and learned that the boy never quit his shaving-saving habit. He had been gathering all the eraser shavings in that very same grey mass since he first made headlines, and that thing had become gigantic. According to media sources, it now weighs over one kilogram.
In order to incorporate new eraser shavings into the ball, Ying would cover it in cooking oil and keep it wrapped in plastic foil. This kept it nice and damp, so new shavings stuck to it very easily. But the sheer patience to repeat the process thousands of times, over 11 years is definitely something to be admired.
The 18-year-old said that he has been doing very well in school and thought of his giant ball of eraser shavings as a good luck charm. He has no plan to stop adding to it in the foreseeable future, and even hopes that his children will one day take over for him…
Interestingly, Guang Ying is apparently not the only person in the world saving eraser shavings as part of a giant eraser ball. There’s actually a post on Stack Exchange detailing how you can actually recycle these shavings into a new eraser by gathering them all into a ball, so I guess it’s not that uncommon.
For more insane people have dedicated decades of their lives to, check out the world’s largest ball of paint, made up of thousands of layers of paint, over 30 years.
