PROTECTING OUR VIRGIN FORESTS

Reading the headlines to this article: America's Love Affair with Really Soft Toilet Paper Is Causing an Environmental Catastrophe
By Tara Lohan, AlterNet. Posted February 27, 2009, really puzzled me. It seems that America is the leading cause of the demand for virgin tree forests being cut down, thus spiraling us as leaders on man-made causes to promoting Global Warming. This came somewhat as a surprise as I have been promising myself that the next time I buy a case of toilet paper it will not be the 1 ply, thousand sheet kind, that is like using waxed tissue paper, often without even the wax. I came to this conclusion after realizing that you have to use twice as much 1-ply, and and more squares because it falls apart on contact with any liquid.

Now I am conflicted. Will my use of 2-ply, softer toilet paper made the Arctic melt faster, thus coming down to shove the Gulf Stream further South, thus turning the UK and Europe back into an Ice Age. I who never feel guilt over anything began to perspire at the very thought that all that rain in Britain may be turned to snow just so that my rear will have a kinder and gentler wipe.

However, that paled next to the Greemnpeace Guide which suggests recycling tissue. Not seeing the meat that gets ground up into sausages assaults my imagination quite enough; recycling toilet paper??? Reading on in the Guide, it suggests: Reusable Cloth Products
"Greenpeace also recommends using reusable cloth hankies instead of facial tissues as using handkerchiefs further reduces our impact on ancient forests." No they can't be suggesting that we all go back to wearing diapers, can they? Oddly, nowhere did I find any instructions as to just what we should be recycling that makes TP. I assumed that if we are crass enough to waste virgin trees for soft TP, we are also wasting water flushing it down. On no! They can't mean we are to recycle the paper before we waste water flushing it away! I was once told a way to conserve TP is to use both sides and felt wasteful when I did not follow that suggestion.

Reading on, I began to feel a bit more comfortable because they use bleach, and we all know bleach will kill most anything and make it white again. I read: "Greenpeace used product labeling and direct verification of claims by the companies included in our Guide. In the few cases where companies did not respond to our request for verification of recycled content percentages and whitening processes used, we assumed 0% overall recycled, 0% post-consumer recycled and ECF bleaching." So now I know what they SHOULD be doing though, as I read it, not all people follow the rules.

Nearing total distress now, I study other options. They no longer make Sears and Roebuck catalogs, that was my first hope. Here in the snowy Northeast, there is not enough green leaved stuff out there long enough to make it a practical alternative. I remember what TP was like before someone DID invent some soft stuff...in fact it was such a joy to one man on TV he could not stop squeezing it. That was quite touching though I was never brought to that degree of fond expression, personally.

Alas, I have concluded since our town's recycling is but once a week, I will limit myself to recycling bottles, plastic, and cans. Since I get no newspapers I am limited to recycling shopping catalogs (which I really think cost more trees than TP but I can't check on that other than to say the volume of shopping catalogs and free coupons in my household, in a week, far exceeds the volume of TP used in all three bathrooms.

I'm left with an insurmountable puzzle. While I wish to keep our planet green, I still don't know what to recycle. It is a dilemma with which I will have to continue to struggle until an acceptable solution comes to me.