The Hidden Toilet Paper Crisis

Americans are buying toilet paper like never before. Crowds flocked to the stores as the covid19 crisis began, and for whatever reason, they cleaned out the national toilet paper supply in a couple of days. This is happening again in Australia which is experiencing a covid spike in the most populated state, New South Wales. As stores stocked up on toilet paper again, I wondered where toilet paper in the US comes from? Where do the 25 pounds of TP each American uses every year coming from?  Will the buying frenzy cause a logging frenzy somewhere?

Most American toilet paper is made out of trees that grow in the Canadian boreal forests. The boreal forests are a vast stretch of woods that circles the top of Canada, Europe and Russia. More than 60% of Canada is covered in boreal forest where a mix of pines, larch, spruce, fir, aspen and birch grow in harsh, cold conditions. Fires burn during the summer. Boreal (meaning northern) forests host billions of migrating birds and rare animals like martins and woodland caribou. They contain wetlands, lakes and rivers where fish and birds thrive and these forests hold more carbon than any other forests on earth.

Boreal forest trees grow relatively small and are not useful for making lumber for the most part. But the trees are abundant. So they are logged to make paper, and much of the paper goes to pulp for toilet paper. In the 20 years after 1995, more than 28 million acres of Canadian boreal forest were logged. Corporations clear-cut, and in this harsh climate, the forests will take more than a century to regrow, if they ever do.

Once logged, mills grind up the wood and then bleach the chips. Then the chips are converted to tissue in a chemical process. Anyone who has lived near a pulp mill knows the smell is overpowering and the water and air pollution from these plants is significant, particularly in Canada where corporations enjoy little regulation from provincial governments.

Once the paper is shipped to the store (with more carbon pollution resulting from the transport) the paper is used once then flushed into sewage systems where more greenhouse gas comes from its decomposition. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, bubbles from sewage treatment plants and landfills as the paper decomposes.

Thus, the virgin pulp TP industry greatly exacerbates global warming. By contrast, TP made with recycled paper has a fraction of these impacts and far less transportation pollution and cost.

Americans spend $31 billion dollar a year on toilet paper. Yet toilet paper is bulky and low priced. It takes large amounts of shelf space relative to the profit made by the retailer. Consumers demand TP and they panic when TP is in short supply.

Koch Industries

Charles Koch, of Koch Industries is a major player in the destruction of these forests. His companies are involved with mining tar sands in southern Alberta also. Both of these industrial activities have a disproportionate impact on the earth’s climate with huge amounts of pollution and landscape destruction.

Charles Koch is the surviving brother of the Koch brothers. The two have funded numerous right-wing anti-government organizations such as “Americans for Prosperity” that work to restrict voting and attack environmental protection regulations while funding libertarian candidates. Much of the Donald Trump administration’s environmental agency staff came from Koch organizations and these people quietly work to dismantle the agencies set up over half a century to protect the American environment.

Koch owns Georgia Pacific, a lumber and paper company. They sell various brands of toilet paper, all made of 100% virgin boreal forest pulp. These brands include Angel Soft, Sparkle, Quilted Northern, and Brawny. Consider boycotting these brands.

Procter and Gamble also sells virgin boreal forest toilet paper under the brands Charmin, Bounty, and Puffs. Chose recycled TP instead, such as the standard TP at Trader Joes.

Americans produce huge quantities of waste paper into the recycling system. Much of this can be converted to toilet paper with less environmental impact than virgin pulp. The more we used recycled content in all of our paper uses, the longer our forests will stay standing.

Costco, the huge warehouse chain, has greatly increased their sale of organic products but tissue is a blind spot for them. All of their Kirkland brand paper products are made with virgin forest pulp. WalMart/Sams Club sells virgin pulp TP but they also sell Seventh Generation, Marcal, and Scott recycled TPs.

Boreal Forests Elsewhere

In May 2020, 5 million of acres of Russian boreal forests are burning according to the London School of Economics. Huge forest fires burn across Russia, some more than a million acres in size. Russia had a warm, mostly snowless winter this year and the Russian boreal forests face human-caused fires that are ravaging their timber stands. The warm winter can easily be attributed to global heating and the more these forests burn and are cleared, the more the climate warms.

Big forest fires have burned across Canada in the last few years and little can be done to contain the fires once they grow in size. Between huge fires and logging, the boreal forests are fast losing their ability to mitigate human carbon dioxide pollution.

Recycled Fiber Toilet Paper

Using recycled paper fiber to make TP has far fewer impacts on the environment. It uses half the water that virgin pulp requires, produces half the air pollution, and leaves forests alone so they can grow and support tribal people and wildlife. Only a third as much greenhouse gas emission results from producing recycled TP.

With the covid19 disaster, we’ve all focused on toilet paper. Let’s focus on using only recycled TP and let the boreal forests live.