Buff Project Notecards
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1) Giant paper producers are forcing the destruction of our continent's most vibrant forests, and devastating the habitat for countless wildlife species in the process - \"these companies are not trying to use better materials (such as post-consumer recycled fiber) and instead continue taking from our natural forest and raw materials.\"
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\"These companies are being pressured by the NRDC along with other environmental companies to change their ways. These corporations work mainly in the US and Canada and set up pulp and tissue making mils.\"
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1) Each year, due to ongoing demand from tissue companies, clearcut logging claims half a million acres of \"Ontario and Alberta's boreal forest -- a primeval expanse of pine, spruce, fir and poplar trees that nourishes caribou, lynx, bear, wolves and scores of songbirds. Indigenous communities depend on the wildlife and plants of this forest for sustenance and medicine\"
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The thick layers of moss, soil and peat of Canada's boreal, which stretches across the country's entire northern range, form one of the world's largest terrestrial storehouses of carbon dioxide and play a critical role in preventing global warming.
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1) The native forests of the southeastern United States also are vanishing at an alarming rate. These fragile ecosystems support dense stands of oak, hickory, black gum and red maple, and provide a haven for deer, fox and more than 230 fish species.
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The southern United States now contains approximately half of the world's tree plantations, and due in part to increasing demand for paper products, the area of these plantations is expected to increase by 63 percent -- to 52 million acres -- by 2040. Until tissue paper manufacturers end their dependence on virgin fiber, North America's most ecologically rich forests will continue to be destroyed for paper throwaways.
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2) One Cord of Wood = 1,000 pounds of toilet paper
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Paper consumption has gotten out of control since the advancement of technology, beginning in the 1980's. Computers have aided largely in the desperate rise in paper consumption. Immense amounts of printouts have occurred for various reasons- education requirements, business, and creative/recreation media. \"Not only have computers played a major part, but the development of the copy machine has vastly attributed to the problem.\"
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3) Colored Toilet Paper: White is the most popular color for toilet paper in the UK and across Europe. The second most popular is pink, and third most popular color is peach. However, due to increased costs and decreased popularity, few major manufacturers still produce colored toilet paper.
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Fancy Toilet Paper: \"Petit Lutin has made a fashionable name for toilet paper! The toilet paper product has small images and writings on French culture, current affairs and geography printed on every perforated sheet. It was designed by Christian Poincheval, a Normandy radio station manager, who had worked on the product for 15 years.New editions of the Petit Lutin rolls will be released monthly in Le Mans, France. Jean-Louis Ducatel, manager of the Leclerc department store in Arconnay, states, \"It's selling almost three times better than a normal toilet paper of the same quality\".\"
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2) Recycling paper is not only collecting wastepaper, but also using paper with recycled contents. Toilet paper with high-recycled content is neither expensive nor difficult to obtain.
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Recycled paper, either pre or post-consumer material, needs to be washed and is often deinked prior to being pulped. The pulp then goes through a bleaching process to make it whiter. There are many different types of bleaching processes; \"New Leaf Paper chooses a processed chlorine free process. Once the pulp is bleached, it enters a series of phases including: paper forming section, press section where water is removed by pressing the wet paper between rolls and felts, drying section where the moisture content is reduced to the desired level, calendering section where the paper is compacted and smoothed progressively as it travels down a stack of steel rolls.\"
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3) As of October of 2000, the United States is the leading producer of paper, with Japan coming in second place, and China in third place.
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The British pay twice as much as the German and French, and nearly three times as much as the Americans for a standard four-pack roll (aka, cost might play a major roll - haha - in consumption).
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3) Washi is a hand-made paper, consisting of water and paper-mulberry. It is used in many paper products in Japan, mostly crafting products and disposable products. \"While it makes for an extremely decorative \"fusuma\" paper door, it is also a softening agent for Japanese toilet paper.\"
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The raw material, paper-mulberry, and recycled wood pulp mix together to form a resilient tissue paper. This papermaking technique was introduced to Japan during the Kamakura period (1192-1333).
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3) \"Nampak is Africa's largest packaging manufacturer, holding the dominant market share in Europe. Nampak manufactures packaging of all types, and exports to 50 countries worldwide. They hold a significant share of South African tissue and paper merchanting markets, as well.\"
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Nampak Tissue and Twinsaver are their two consumer products divisions dealing with household sanitary products. \"All of the Nampak paper products are produced using recycled paper including Lotus facial tissue, TwinSoft toilet tissue, and Cuddlers disposable diapers.\"
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2) \"According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United States could save 470,000 trees, 1.2 million feet of cubic landfill space, and 169 million gallons of water if everyone in the US traded one roll of regular toilet paper for a recycled roll. That's just for one roll. Imagine if we all made the permanent switch to recycled toilet paper!\"
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Recycled paper can actually be more expensive to manufacture, and therefore can possibly more expensive to purchase. Originally recycled paper was noticeably inferior to non-recycled paper, however today the gap has closed considerably and in many cases you cannot tell the difference.
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4) Materials Needed for Homemade TP: -Blender -Cotton -Wood/Sawdust -Band saw -Lotion (if you want it soft)
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Process involved blending, stirring, drying, creating sawdust with band saw, creating pulp, and experimenting until you create a mixture that suits your fancy.
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5) \"What did people use before toilet paper? Well, just use your imagination: grass, leaves, fur, mussell shells, corncobs, stinging nettles... okay, maybe not that last, at least not more than once. The ancient Greeks used stones and pieces of clay; ancient Romans used sponges on the ends of sticks, kept in jugs filled with salty water.\"
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Mideasterners commonly used the left hand, which is supposedly still considered unclean in the Arabian region. Corncobs and pages torn from newspapers and magazines were commonly used in the early American West. The Sears catalogue was well-known in this context. The Farmer's Almanac had a hole in it so it could be hung on a hook and the pages torn off easily (This is why people now read in the bathroom).
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5) Joseph C. Gayetty of New York started producing the first packaged toilet paper in the U.S. in 1857.
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Consisted of pre-moistened flat sheets medicated with aloe and was named \"Gayetty's Medicated Paper\". Gayetty's name was printed on every sheet.
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5) Rolled and perforated toilet paper as we're familiar with today was invented around 1880.
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Sources attribute it to the Albany Perforated Wrapping (A.P.W.) Paper Company in 1877, and to the Scott Paper company in 1879 or 1890 (FF: the Scott Company was too embarrassed to put their name on the paper)
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5) In 1935, Northern Tissue advertised \"splinter-free\" toilet paper - early paper production techniques sometimes left splinters embedded in the paper.
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Dates: In 1942, St. Andrew's Paper Mill in Great Britain introduced two-ply toilet paper. America experienced its first toilet paper shortage in 1973. The Virtual Toilet Paper Museum opened its virtual doors in 1999.
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6) It was proposed that we all use only one sheet of toilet tissue per bathroom visit.
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\"...the average person uses 57 sheets of toilet paper per day. With that in mind, you can estimate costs pretty easily. A typical brand's 12-pack retails for $6.99 and has 352 sheets per roll, meaning that it will last a family of four about 18 to 19 days. That means that family needs to buy a 12-pack about 20 times per year, putting the annual toilet-tissue costs around $140\"
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7) Tissue Paper Stats: Percent of germs killed in Kleenex Anti-Viral Tissue (99.9%) Amount of time it takes for Kleenex Anti-Viral (15 min) Percent of people who if stranded on a desert island and could have 1 item would choose toilet paper (49%) Percent of people who hang first sheet of toilet paper over the roll (72%) Percent of people who prefer first sheet of toilet paper to hang under the roll (28%) Percent of people who use toilet paper for nose care (61%) Percent of people who use toilet paper for wiping small spills (17%)
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Percent of people who use toilet paper for removing makeup (8%) Average amount of usage a single roll of toilet paper will be used in a public restroom (71.48 uses) Percent of people who use toilet paper that are Folders/Stackers (40%) Percent of people who are considered Wader (40%( Percent of people who are considered Wrappers (20%) Percent of households that buy Premium and Super Premium toilet paper brands (84%) Percent of households that buy Regular and Economy brand toilet paper (64%) Percent of households who use both at one time or another 48%
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8) \"Americans use more than 50 pounds of toilet paper per year. That's almost twice as much as Europeans use. Suggestion that a law be passed to limit use to one or two squares - could be done to stem the flow of TP.\"
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\"Bidet use alone can't explain the discrepancy in use between Europe and the US: we know from experience that not every European home has a bidet. Either they use the bathroom a whole lot less than us, or our friends across the pond must just use fewer sheets to do the job.\"
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9) \"There is a full roll of toilet paper sitting right there on the floor. That new roll is just waiting for someone to take the initiative and place it on the toilet-paper holder. If you look closely at the picture, you'll see that this is one of those modern holders, more like a stick or a finger. It replaces the more complicated spring-loaded bar that requires two hands and a little-very little-dexterity to change rolls.\"
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\"Besides the ease with which toilet paper can be placed on the holder, it has an additional feature. It stands on the floor on a weighted base so there is no bothersome installation. No tools. No screws. No holes in the wall. No moving parts. Just snip off the price tag ($29.99) and you're in business. These simplified holders were designed to encourage replacement of the toilet paper when the roll is empty. They do not work.\"
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9) \"How can a grown man run a business and, in his spare time, conceive and articulate a complex multi-year rebuilding plan for the Chicago Cubs yet be oblivious to the need to replenish the empty toilet paper dispenser? If an easy-on holder, such as the one shown here, does not solve the problem, what's to assure that the toilet paper is replaced?\"
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\"Simple: Any woman who ventures into that bathroom.\"
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10) A portable bidet offers better results. \"Most people go to the bathroom 70-80% outside of their homes. So instead of buying a toilet that has a built-in bidet or buying a bidet attachment (that you are only going to use 20-30% of the time anyways) get a portable bidet that you can take anywhere and use anytime.\"
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When you use a bidet that is built in or a bidet attachment, you give up some control of how you are cleaned. You are at the mercy of restraint. If you think about using a portable bidet you have the ability to determine how you are going to clean yourself. etc.
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10) \"If there is worry about the type of pressure involved with a portable bidet vs a toilet bidet I will argue that you will get more for your money by sticking with a portable bidet.\"
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\"There is enough pressure generated that when you are all done with your deposit, unless you need pressure like Kramer in the shower head episode, the portable bidet will be all that you could ever hope for.\"
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10) There are more than 5 reasons to use an alternative to toilet paper, 5 reasons to use a hand held/portable bidet; 5 favorites of using a bidet vs dry toilet paper (on back).
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\"1. You won't feel disgusting after you are done going to the bathroom. (vs. just using toilet paper) 2. You wont have to worry about \"wasp colored\" undy wear. (Read the article it's pretty sweet) 3. You won't dread going to the bathroom at the office because YOU KNOW you aren't going to be 100% clean with that dry toilet paper. 4. You can help save a tree by using less toilet paper. 5. You actually feel refreshed after a 2-skie with a nice clean bum. (OK that is pretty close to reason number 1)\"
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10) \"When you think about it, running out of toilet paper is actually a blessing in disguise.\" There are toilet paper alternatives readily available in and around the home; with a little bit of forethought and creativity, you could save yourself a small fortune by making or even growing your own.
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You can create an almost endless supply of homemade toilet paper alternatives.
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10) Alternatives to Toilet Paper
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-Sponge on a stick -Personal Cloths -Watering Cans -Spray Bottles -Mullien -Lamb's Ear (Plant) -Recycled Toilet Paper
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10) Recycled Toilet Paper: \"You will find most if not all the tools you need for this task around the home. For anything that you don't have, you can easily find alternatives. You can play around with the tutorial to create the perfect toilet paper for you. For instance, the tutorial mentions placing the towels on a hard, flat surface - I found that using a porous washboard allowed the water to drain much more quickly and resulted in softer sheets.\"
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DIY toilet paper is environmentally friendly, up-cycles materials that you already have, and cuts both the cost and the need to travel in order to acquire the toilet paper. \"You will find most if not all the tools you need for this task around the home\".
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13) A suburban family talks about how they changed their ways to be environmentally friendly - which included cutting their toilet paper intake.
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They admitted that toilet paper was one of the easiest things to go without - especially over coffee and their favourite clothes.
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14) \"Environmentalists are flush with anger over super-soft toilet paper. Fluffy toilet paper has become the newest target for environmentalists, who say brands like Quilted Northern Ultra Plus toilet paper are a complete menace to the earth, according to a report in the Washington Post.\"
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\"The reason, say the eco-defenders, is that the super-soft stuff is usually made from trees that are decades or even a century old. Those trees are cut down and ground up, all for American comfort, decry critics. Instead, Americans could simply be using tissue made from recycled paper and hardly notice a difference, according to the Washington Post.\"
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14) \"Should I contribute to clear-cutting and deforestation because the big [marketing] machine has told me that softness is important?\" Spring asked the Washington Post. Other environmentalists argue that it's dark and cruel joke: the oldest trees being cut down for the most insignificant sort of ending.\"
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\"However, things continue uphill battle for the green crusaders.\" Combined with facial tissue, toilet paper accounts for only 5% of the U.S. forest-product industry, according to industry figures. Compare that to paper and cardboard packaging, which accounts for 26% and you begin to see why big manufacturers aren't that concerned.
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14) \"It's not about quantity, environmentalists argue, according to the Washington Post report. The problem is in the manufacturing. Toilet paper is made from a web of wood fibers with newer fibers being longer and suppler, while recycled fibers are shorter and often rougher to the touch. And it's the \"at home\" toilet paper - the higher end, softer stuff - that uses, at most, 5% recycled materials.\"
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\"Some of the larger companies have retaliated, saying that they only buy wood pulp from forest operations certified as sustainable, the Washington Post reported, but environmentalists argue that isn't good enough. Progress; Kimberly-Clarke, the makers of Kleenex and Cottonelle, recently announced that thanks to lobbying groups, all of their tissue products will contain at least 40% recycled fibers or material from sustainable forests by the year 2011. Several companies that produce recycled paper are also working to improve the softness of their tissue as well, in order to compete with bigger names.\"
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15) When Sheryl Crow said that people should use only one sheet of toilet paper, she was lampooned by everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Jon Stewart. More recently, the issue of toilet paper has become less of a joke (except when celebrities express an opinion) and more of a cause.
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Since the fluffy kind cannot be made from recycled paper, conservationists argue, consumers can do their part to protect the environment by buying the rougher stuff. There are skeptics who say the benefits of such a switch are overstated.
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16) Americans like their toilet tissue soft: \"exotic confections that are silken, thick and hot-air-fluffed.\" The national obsession with soft paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra
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\"But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them\".
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16) \"Customers \"demand soft and comfortable,\" said James Malone, a spokesman for Georgia Pacific, the maker of Quilted Northern. \"Recycled fiber cannot do it.\"\"
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\"The country's soft-tissue habit — call it the Charmin effect — has not escaped the notice of environmentalists, who are increasingly making toilet tissue manufacturers the targets of campaigns. \"No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper,\" said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defense Council\"
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16) In the United States, which is the largest market worldwide for toilet paper, tissue from 100 percent recycled fibers makes up less than 2 percent of sales for at-home use among conventional and premium brands. Most manufacturers use a combination of trees to make their products.
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The pulp from one eucalyptus tree, a commonly used tree, produces as many as 1,000 rolls of toilet tissue. Americans use an average of 23.6 rolls per capita a year.
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16) \"Other countries are far less picky about toilet tissue. In many European nations, a rough sheet of paper is deemed sufficient. Other countries are also more willing to use toilet tissue made in part or exclusively from recycled paper.\"
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In Europe and Latin America, products with recycled content make up about on average 20 percent of the at-home market, (according to experts at the Kimberly Clark Corporation).
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16) \"Environmental groups say that the percentage is even higher and that they want to nurture similar acceptance here. Through public events and guides to the recycled content of tissue brands, they are hoping that Americans will become as conscious of the environmental effects of their toilet tissue use as they are about light bulbs or other products.\"
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Environmentalists are focusing on tissue products for reasons besides the loss of trees. Turning a tree to paper requires more water than turning paper back into fiber, and many brands that use tree pulp use polluting chlorine-based bleach for greater whiteness. In addition, tissue made from recycled paper produces less waste tonnage — almost equaling its weight — that would otherwise go to a landfill.
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16) Although brands differ, 25 percent to 50 percent of the pulp used to make toilet paper in this country comes from tree farms in South America and the United States. \"The rest, environmental groups say, comes mostly from old, second-growth forests that serve as important absorbers of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas linked to global warming.\"
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In addition, some of the pulp comes from the last virgin North American forests, which are an irreplaceable habitat for a variety of endangered species.
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16) \"But people who buy toilet tissue for their homes — even those who identify themselves as concerned about the environment — are resistant to toilet tissue made from recycled paper.\"
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With a global recession, however, that may be changing. In the past few months, sales of premium toilet paper have plunged 7 percent nationally.
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16) \"The company will introduce the new toilet tissue in April, around Earth Day.\" Mr. Spring said Marcal (from article) would be able to price the new tissue below most conventional brands, in part because of the lower cost of recycled material.
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\"Our idea is that you don't have to spend extra money to save the Earth,\" he said. \"And people want to know what happens to the paper they recycle. This will give them closure.\"
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17) Video (could play snippets)
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Synopsis of video: Toilet Paper companies making more money on average due to this new idea. Other companies pay to have their adds printed on the toilet paper - trying to compete with other companies. If you will, \"Show them up, while you take a dump\". Note: this could be the solution for the higher price of environmentally friendly toilet paper - the companies nor you would have to stress and pay more.
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18) Using the bathroom has come a long way from when ancient Greeks used stones and pieces of clay for personal hygiene. \"Toilet paper is one of those things that often gets taken for granted in modern times, except for places Charmin has yet to infiltrate.\" This is definitely one of those unavoidable things in life, so through many centuries and in many cultures, everyone had their own method of staying clean.
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Ancient Romans were a bit more sophisticated than the Greeks when it came to cleansing: They opted for a sponge on the end of a long stick that was shared by everyone in the community.
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18) \"When not in use, that stick stayed in a bucket of heavily salted seawater in the communal bathroom. The public facilities were also equipped with a long marble bench with holes carved out for—well, you know what they were carved out for—and holes at the front for your sponge on a stick to slide through.\"
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\"Romans didn't have dividing walls, either, so you sat right next to that cute girl from the insulae down the road.\"
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18) Chinese Early Toilet Paper
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Around 1391, during the Song Dynasty, a Chinese emperor decreed that large 2-foot-by-3-foot paper sheets must be made for his toilet time. Until then, people in China just used random paper products.
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18) \"By the era of Colonial America, things weren't much more advanced. After the rebels had left Great Britain for the colonies, the best things they could find were corncobs. Ouch.\"
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It wasn't until later that they realized they could use old newspapers and catalogues. The whole reason there was a hole through the corner of the Old Farmer's Almanac was so people would be able to hang it on a hook in their outhouses. \"(It makes you look at your current bathroom reading material a little differently, doesn't it?)\"
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18) Even though Queen Elizabeth I's godson invented one of the first flush toilets in 1596, commercially produced toilet paper didn't begin circulating until 1857.
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Quilted Northern, formerly Northern Tissue, advertised as late as 1935 that their toilet paper was \"Splinter-Free!\" Since the company is still big in the multiple-ply, multi-billion dollar industry today, the marketing plan must have been a success - splinter-free was obviously in very high demand. \"Now, Americans actually use more than seven billion rolls of toilet paper a year.\"
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20) Toilet paper production has increased by 40% every year.
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This is purely based on birth rate and demand.
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19) \"One culture today still doesn't want anything to do with toilet paper; it's widely known that today we can buy luxury bathroom bonuses like paperless toilets and heated toilet seats—so there's no going back to the brush-on-a-stick days.\"
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\"Most actually argue that using water is cleaner than using tissue paper, and consider using anything but water to be filthy.\"
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20) \"The country's soft-tissue habit — call it the Charmin effect — has not escaped the notice of environmentalists, who are increasingly making toilet tissue manufacturers the targets of campaigns. \"No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper,\" said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defense Council\"
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\"Bidet use alone can't explain the discrepancy in use between Europe and the US: we know from experience that not every European home has a bidet. Either they use the bathroom a whole lot less than us, or our friends across the pond must just use fewer sheets to do the job.\"
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20) \"That new roll is just waiting for someone to take the initiative and place it on the toilet-paper holder. If you look closely at the picture, you'll see that this is one of those modern holders, more like a stick or a finger. It replaces the more complicated spring-loaded bar that requires two hands and a little-very little-dexterity to change rolls.\"
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\"...the average person uses 57 sheets of toilet paper per day. With that in mind, you can estimate costs pretty easily. A typical brand's 12-pack retails for $6.99 and has 352 sheets per roll, meaning that it will last a family of four about 18 to 19 days. That means that family needs to buy a 12-pack about 20 times per year, putting the annual toilet-tissue costs around $140\"
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21) \"There are more than 5 reasons to use an alternative to toilet paper. For now, I think we should go over 5 reasons to use a hand held/portable bidet. Here are my 5 favorites of using a bidet vs dry toilet paper.\"
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Sources attribute it to the Albany Perforated Wrapping (A.P.W.) Paper Company in 1877, and to the Scott Paper company in 1879 or 1890 \"(FF: the Scott Company was too embarrassed to put their name on the paper)\"
