Toilet Paper: What's the Difference?

The tenderness of the delicate U.S. backside is creating more ecological devastation than the country's adoration of gas-devouring vehicles, fast food or heating costs, according to green researchers. At fault, they are saying, will be the US public's seeming need for extra-soft toilet paper once they use the toilet.

"Toilet paper is a product that we use for not even 3 seconds and the environmental consequences of manufacturing it from trees is huge," said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Future generations are going to look at the manner in which we make toilet paper as 1 of the worst excesses of our time. Generating toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving gas-guzzlers in terms of pollution." Generating toilet paper includes a significant influence simply because of chemical substances used in pulp manufacturing and cutting down trees. More than 98% of the toilet paper offered in America originates from virgin wood, said Hershkowitz. In Europe, as much as 40 percent of toilet paper comes from recycled goods. "We have this myth in the United States that recycled is just such minimal quality stuff, it's like cardboard and is impossible to make use of," said Lindsey Allen, the forestry campaigner of Greenpeace. The campaigning group says it created a manual to counter an aggressive marketing push by the large paper product makers in which celebrities talk about the comforts of luxury manufacturers of toilet paper and tissue. Those brands, which place pockets of air in between several layers of paper, are especially damaging towards the atmosphere.

Paper manufacturers such as Kimberly-Clark have recognized luxurious brands such as three-ply tissues or tissues infused with hand lotion as being the fastest-growing marketplace share inside a highly competitive industry.The company's latest tv advertisements show a woman caressing toilet paper that has lotion in it. The New York Times reported a 40 percent increase in sales of luxury brands of toilet paper in 2008. Paper companies are wanting to maintain those percentages up, even as the recession continues. Additionally, Reuters reported that Kimberly-Clark spent $25m in its 2nd quarter on marketing to convince Americans against trusting their derrieres to cheaper brands.

But Kimberly-Clark, which touts its environmental credentials on its web site, rejects the concept that it's pushing destructive products on an ignorant U.S. public. Dave Dixon, a company spokesman, said toilet paper and tissue from recycled trees had been on the market for many years. If Americans needed to purchase them, they might. "For toilet paper Americans in specific like the softness and strength that virgin paper offers," Dixon stated. "It's the quality and softness the consumers in America have come to anticipate." For good values on toilet paper.

Lengthier fibers in unprocessed paper are easier to lay out and fluff up to get a softer toilet paper. Dixon stated the business used products from sustainbly farmed forests in Canada. Americans already consume vastly more paper than any other country- about 3 times more per person than the typical European, and one hundred times more than the average individual in China. Hardly a third of the paper goods offered in America are from recycled sources- most of it arrives from virgin trees. "I truly do believe it is solely an American phenomenon," stated Hershkowitz. "Americans just don't comprehend that softness equals environmental devastations."