Toilet paper has often been a source of humour or irritation in the last year or so. It seems we equate it with comfort – and a comfort we don’t want to go without. Perhaps, though, it is time that we really considered the environmental impact of using tree-based paper products for personal hygiene and considered other materials.
This is because 42 million tons of toilet paper is used each year – a figure that translates to a length of toilet roll wrapping itself around the planet every 10 minutes or travelling to the sun and back every seven days. And that is a distance of 186 million miles. If that wasn’t bad enough the industry causes deforestation where it uses old-growth forests and destruction of wildlife habitats where it introduces a monocultures.
Toilet paper from wood is also slow to biodegrade and requires harsh chemical and bleaching processes to first of all turn it into the kind of material beloved of golden Labrador puppies. You can find all the current stats – with a live counter whizzing round here with the year-to-date’s figures here
The unfortunate fact is that we are cutting down 712 million trees per year in the pursuit of a soft velvety experience…
Using recycled toilet paper is one solution and encouraging manufacturers to switch to using recycled materials is through sheer buying power is something consumer pressure could do.
One much-touted alternative (apart from bidets etc) is fast-growing bamboo (up to 39 inches per day!). Feedback from users suggests however that it may have the unwelcome habit of” drain blocking” – so do do your research first.
One new material that is beginning to get some publicity is the use of hemp for toilet paper. Hemp is also stated to be fast growing. It doesn’t need pesticides, herbicides or irrigation – though it does require some fertilisers.
Hemp also
- Is softer that regular paper (it contains something called ‘bast fibres’ which are also found in linen
- Readily biodegrades without releasing all the chemicals that wood-based paper releases when it degrades
- Besides being soft…. It is also very strong (after all ships’ ropes used to be made from hemp)
- It also has antibacterial and antifungal properties thanks to its chemical make-up
- You can harvest it after 70 days of growth
Buying hemp paper
While the market is beginning to grow, your best bet currently for finding hemp paper in the UK is to go to Alibaba where it is stocked and you are able to buy it in smaller quantities from some suppliers. Here’s a link to a UK company that is planning to roll out hemp toilet paper in the UK