Toilet Paper Can Make a Difference

General Information, Household Items, Musings

One of the most common complaints I hear about buying organic or “going green” is how expensive it is. I will not argue the fact that yes it is more expensive, but only in the short term. I will use the example of eating organic food. About 90% of the food I buy is organic. I remember a night about a year ago in the summer when my Mom came over for dinner. I made a salad with all organic veggies and organic salad dressing (although now I prefer to make my own salad dressing-another topic for another day), organic durum wheat spaghetti, and organic tomato sauce. A very common, typical meal. The whole time we were eating my Mom kept saying, “Oh my God, this is so good! It’s just so good!” To which I responded, “It’s because it’s organic. And the day I can’t afford organic food is the day we eat less.” Organic is definitely a lifestyle, and once you sign on, there’s no going back. It’s like one of my friends always says, “When you’re in hell, you get used to it, it becomes not so bad. Then one day, you get to go to Heaven for a little while. Then you have to go back to hell, it’s soooooo much worse, intolerable really, you just can’t go back.” Yes organic food is more expensive but when you eat organic, which normally implies you are eating healthier, something amazing happens, you find out you eat less. When you eat less you don’t have to buy as much and you will be amazed to find out six months after you make the switch to organic your grocery bills are the same if not less. When you eat healthier you are unwilling to buy junk food as often and better yet you don’t CRAVE it either. Again, another topic for another day, because as the title states, I am blogging about toilet paper. So to make my point, yes buying organic and green products costs a little more, but the pay offs are worth every red cent, which leads me to toilet paper.

I would love to buy a Hybrid vehicle but at the moment it is not in my budget. I would love to own a home with solar panels. I could go on and on. But there is something I can do that is in my budget that can make a HUGE difference. I can buy recycled toilet paper. Who knew toilet paper was made with chlorine? I mean did you all know we were wiping our butts with CHLORINE? What the f___? It might not seem like a big deal to you but we flush it down the toilet and hello what’s in our drinking water? CHLORINE! So one day while flipping through a Body + Soul magazine I came across this article called “Just One Thing”. It basically quoted big names in the green movement about one thing you can do to make a difference, as the title implies. One of the blurbs was about toilet paper.

Buy recycled TP

Believe it or not, recycled toilet paper can change the world. “If every household in the U.S. bought just one four-pack of 260-sheet recycled bath tissue, it would eliminate 60,600 pounds of chlorine pollution, preserve 356 million gallons of fresh water, and save 988,000 trees,” says Jeffrey Hollender, 52 whose company Seventh Generation, offers a range of environmentally conscious consumer goods. Using recycled paper products saves manufacturers a trip into the forest and doesn’t require the energy needed to extract pulp from trees. Plus, a four-pack of the recycled kind costs about the same as conventional. You can effect change, Hollender insists, “one roll of toilet paper at a time.”

Body + Soul magazine May 2007 issue page 105

So I leave you with a link that can effect great change, one wipe at a time.
Green Forest Unscented Bathroom Tissue, 2-Ply

Deborah @ October 11, 2007