Recycled paper products

As an eco conscious consumer trying to reduce our global footprint one great way is to reduce paper products. We’ve already talked about reducing out junk mail but what about other paper products. There is no easy way to broach this topic but we all use paper products everyday, it’s virtually unavoidable. What’s the culprit? Bathroom tissue or toilet paper as it’s also called. Yep let’s get the bathroom humor out the way and start talking about the paper we use multiple times a day and how we can reduce our impact.

Recycled
Did you know that the standard bath tissue is made from virgin pulp?
Meaning that trees are cut down to manufacturer it, and older trees at that destroying countless acre’s of forest year on year, forests that are crucial to maintaining life on Earth. Recycled bath tissue is now available with 100% recycled content. The most important thing you should look for though is the PCC, that’s he post consumer content percentage. The higher the Post Consumer Content the better as this means that the bath tissue has been made from the household recycled paper not from manufacturing waste.

Bleach free
Standard bath tissue also undergoes processing with a bleaching agent
releasing dioxin (a known carcinogen) into the environment. But there
are greener alternatives! All the bleaching does is make the tissue white so you could look for more natural colored papers instead or when choosing an eco friendly bath tissue look for statements such as “processed chlorine-free” (PCF) or “No Bleach”.

Personal recommendation
Many stores are now manufacturing their products to the eco friendly consumer so recycled, bleach free products are popping up in just about every store. Our family loves the paper products from Trader Joe’s. Not only are they 100% recycled, but 80% of that is post consumer content! That’s a great percentage figure! Also their packaging states that

“No Chlorine bleach was used in the manufacturing of this product. Safe for septic tanks”

It all sounds great but I really wish they’d thought about the packaging a little more. Like most bath tissue, it’s packaged in plastic. The package does state that it is “environmentally responsible plastic wrap. It will expire in 18 months” but really? It IS still plastic when a paper wrapping would be more environmentally conscious and we’d have to recycle it potentially adding to the post consumer content of our next bath tissue purchase. A thing I like about Trader Joe’s products though is that they are good for the environment and good for my pocketbook, a package of 12 rolls is around $4, that’s about half the price of a ‘brand name” bath tissue.

A small change, that could help save the environment! Try it!

dalgal | My Bio & Articles