American taste for soft toilet roll
worse than driving Hummers
Guardian.co.uk
Suzanne Goldenberg
US environment correspondent
Thursday 26 February 2009
Toilet paper now is
ending the world and SUV’s and Hummers are not as bad as we were made to believe
over the last ten years. This is nothing
more than a bizarre hit piece on American life and the need for the
Extra-soft,
quilted and multi-ply toilet roll made from virgin forest causes more damage
than gas-guzzlers, fast food or McMansions, say
campaigners
The tenderness of the delicate
American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country's
love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions,
according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the
"This is a product that we
use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences
of manufacturing it from trees is enormous," said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense
Council.
"Future generations are
going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses
of our age. Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving
Hummers in terms of global warming pollution." Making toilet paper has a
significant impact because of chemicals used in pulp manufacture and cutting
down forests.
A campaign by Greenpeace seeks to
raise consciousness among Americans about the environmental costs of their
toilet habits and counter an aggressive new push by the paper industry giants
to market so-called luxury brands.
More than 98% of the toilet roll
sold in
"We have this myth in the
The campaigning group says it
produced the guide to counter an aggressive marketing push by the big paper
product makers in which celebrities talk about the comforts of luxury brands of
toilet paper and tissue.
Those brands, which put quilting
and pockets of air between several layers of paper, are especially damaging to
the environment.
Paper manufacturers such as
Kimberly-Clark have identified luxury brands such as three-ply tissues or
tissues infused with hand lotion as the fastest-growing market share in a
highly competitive industry. Its latest television advertisements show a woman
caressing tissue infused with hand lotion.
The New York Times reported a 40%
rise in sales of luxury brands of toilet paper in 2008. Paper companies are
anxious to keep those percentages up, even as the recession bites. And Reuters
reported that Kimberly-Clark spent $25m in its third quarter on advertising to
persuade Americans against trusting their bottoms to cheaper brands.
But Kimberly-Clark, which touts
its green credentials on its website, rejects the idea that it is pushing
destructive products on an unwitting American public.
Dave Dixon, a company spokesman,
said toilet paper and tissue from recycled fiber had been on the market for
years. If Americans wanted to buy them, they could.
"For bath tissue Americans
in particular like the softness and strength that virgin fibers provides,"
Longer fibers in virgin wood are
easier to lay out and fluff up for a softer tissue.
Americans already consume vastly
more paper than any other country — about three times more per person than the
average European, and 100 times more than the average person in
Barely a third of the paper
products sold in
"I really do think it is
overwhelmingly an American phenomenon," said Hershkowitz.
"People just don't understand that softness equals ecological destruction."