Feb 27, 2009

Environmental consequences of a gentle touch...

Toilet paper is notoriously by now a luxury good (ah?). There are several brands which compete on a specific attribute: "softness". Those people who want to be pleased in every second of their life, end up spending lot of money on this product. It's the market baby! But wait a minute...isn't toilet paper made from forest? Does it make a difference by how much I want to increse my daily intake of self-inflicted gratitutde? Apparently, the answer is: Yes, a lot!!

Allen Hershkowitz, at the Natural Resources Defence Council, a US based environmental action group, has launched a campaign against the American obsession of extra-softness in toilet paper use. For those out there who go for a soft/gentle touch, Hershkowitz said "This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous". Greenpeace this week launched a cut-out-and-keep ecological ranking of toilet paper products. The full story is here.

3 comments:

Pierre-Louis said...

of course it matters...and it matters whether its recycled paper or not, whether you unroll it from the top or the bottom when in need (you use less when its form the top) and the amount of paper you need...3 folds is all you really need! but the soft one is still of great use on saturday mornings...

Dany Jaimovich - Bakary Baludin said...

in chileans bars there is an easy solution: to use the yellow pages...

cosimo said...

I buy the recycled one, out of some ill-defined "enviornmental concern" but I also use baby towels a lot, they are so soft and no bidet is needed afterwards :-) Next step: wall street journal