Fluffy Toilet Paper Worse Than Hummers

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2008
Fluffy Toilet Paper Worse Than Hummers
9
Sat, 02-28-2009 - 9:09pm

Many prefer soft fluffy paper, others use the 1,000 sheet one ply stuff. Turns out the fluffy stuff is worse for the environment than Hummers. Will people switch? Should our government mandate the more environmentally friendly paper?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,502444,00.html

Fluffy Toilet Paper Said to Be Worse for Environment Than Hummers

That super-soft toilet paper you're fond of using? It's an ecological disaster, environmentalists say.

Millions of trees are harvested throughout the Americas – including rare old-growth forests in Canada – to sustain the United States’ obsession with quilted, ultra-soft, multi-ply toilet paper, the New York Times reported.

Although toilet paper manufacturers could produce products from recycled materials at a similar cost, the newspaper reported, the fiber taken from standing trees are necessary to help give the tissue its fluffy feel.

“No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper,” said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defense Council told the Times.

The United States is the largest market for toilet paper in the world, the newspaper reported, but tissue from 100 percent recycled fibers makes up less than 2 percent of sales for at-home use among conventional and premium brands. People from other countries throughout Europe and Latin America are far less picky about what they use to wipe.

“This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous,” Hershkowitz told the Guardian newspaper, which cited the chemicals used in pulp manufacturing and process of cutting down forests.

“Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age," Hershkowitz said. "Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution.”

However, hope is on the horizon, if Hollywood is any indicator. The Times reported the Academy Awards ceremony last weekend used 100 percent recycled toilet paper at the Kodak Theater’s restrooms.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-25-2008
Sat, 02-28-2009 - 9:13pm
Oh man, that's harsh.

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 01-22-2009
Sat, 02-28-2009 - 10:54pm

Interesting!


(I prefer the recycled.)

Kate


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 03-01-2009 - 8:10am
Now they don't

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Mon, 03-02-2009 - 11:40am

(I prefer the recycled.)


Yep, so do we...Seventh Generation is the brand that I buy.


iVillage Member
Registered: 01-28-2009
Mon, 03-02-2009 - 2:24pm

I already use the cheaper one-ply stuff (force of habit). Probably because growing up, we had a septic tank that couldn't take the 2 ply stuff. I never did understand the need to get so fancy with the toilet paper (nor did I understand the commercials....who'd want to wipe their behinds with a fluffy white kitten? ;o).

My mother used to have these great outhouse stories (they had no indoor plumbing). Apart from moving the outhouses back 3 feet with her sisters on Hallowe'en night....she said their toilet paper was the Sears catalogue and the height of luxury was getting the black and white pages (the colour ones were too scratchy). When the catalogue arrived everyone made a mad scramble for it (not for shopping, but to get to the non-colour pages first)....in this case there really was the risk of paper cuts you know where....Also in Europe I had often found myself in public washrooms that had this crinkly brown paper on a roll. It was like the brown paper you wrap parcels in (and it didn't even have those convenient perforated section dividers either).

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-28-2009
Mon, 03-02-2009 - 2:24pm

LOL! I just finished writing about that!

Community Leader
Registered: 04-05-2002
Mon, 03-02-2009 - 3:44pm
I think we need a fluffy tax per square. That would take care of the deficit.





iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Mon, 03-02-2009 - 3:46pm
I'd heard about people using Sears 'tissue' also corn cobs but that maybe a joke. In Britain, years ago, some public toilets had stuff like a fine crepe paper had a slight abrasive effect on one's nether regions.
We have a septic tank so use tissue that breaks down easily. (Scott)

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Mon, 03-02-2009 - 3:47pm
LOL

 


Photobucket&nbs