Wiping Out Plush Toilet Paper

Posted on 20. May, 2010 by Marty in Sewage Treatment Systems

Wiping Out Plush Toilet Paper

 

This article appeared in Small Flows Magazine, Fall/Winter 2009, Volume 9, Number 3.

 

Awhile ago, there was a commercial that pleaded with us not to squeeze, well, a certain bathroom tissue.  Since then, we’ve been searching for the     softest bathroom tissue we can find.  We want it quilted, ultra plush, and fluffy.  But while our behinds may appreciate our attention to this feature, environmentalists say that we should learn to wipe with something a little more Earth friendly, according to September 24, 2009, Washington Post article. 

That wonderful, plush toilet paper we love comes at price. U.S. toilet paper is typically made by chopping down lots of old-growth trees, grinding them to pulp, and turning them into the soft stuff. Big toilet-paper makers say they would be happy to produce recycled toilet paper, but their customers just won’t sit for it. 

“At what price [does] softness [come]?” asks Tim Spring, chief executive of Marcal Manufacturing, a New Jersey papermaker that is attempting to persuade its customers to buy recycled paper. “Should I contribute to clear-cutting and deforestation because the big [marketing] machine has told me that softness is important?” 

Spring adds that changing to a recycled toilet paper isn’t like you’re asking people to give up the world—just a little comfort. Toilet paper accounts for   about 5 percent of the U.S. forest-products industry. Not that much, but some argue that even a little bit is too much. And cutting down old trees for the “briefest and most undignified end” needs to be stopped. 

“[Some customers] are quite demanding of products that are soft,” says James Malone, a spokesman for Georgia- Pacific. One three-ply brand brought in more than $144 million in the past year, according to Information Resources, Inc., a marketing research firm.  Greenpeace says it has spent four-and-a-half years working toward making paper recyclable.  “We have campaigned forever,” says Lindsey Allen, a senior    forest campaigner for Greenpeace, adding that it was enough to get Kimberly-Clark to change its ways. “We have a policy that. . .will shift the entire way these tissue companies do business.”

 

For more information about recyclable toilet paper, go www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/forests/tissueguide for  information about buying environmentallyfriendly brands.

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