
America's love of luxury toilet paper is destroying Canadian forests - drugme
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/01/canada-boreal-forest-toilet-paper-us-climate-change-impact-report
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yasp
Surely the paper is being harvested from sustainably managed tree farms? And
surely if demand for said paper decreased, to the point where the tree farm
wasn't profitable, said tree farm owner would raze the farm.

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dekhn
most paper in the US is sustainably forested. The article overstates its case.

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nabla9
Those Japanese luxury toilets that many Asians and some Western celebrities
and rich people use might actually be the most environmentally friendly
choice.

[https://www.totousa.com/products/neorest](https://www.totousa.com/products/neorest)

~~~
ericd
Heh you don't have to spend $5k. You can swap out almost any standard toilet
seat for a $350 Toto Washlet to get a heated seat and heated water. They are
incredible, and you're right, they almost eliminate the need for toilet paper.

Or you can go super cheap and get a $20-50 version with unheated water.

~~~
kalleboo
And the only reason they cost $350 in the US is due to rarity - here in Japan
you can get them (with heated seat/water) from Panasonic and Toshiba for under
$150

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kumarvvr
I really dont get why the west doesn't use a bidet.

Its really mind blowing to me that if someone smears a cake on your face, you
wash it with soap, but use TP to clean feaces.

Why use so much paper and do so mich environmental damage, if you can just use
water for a better cleansing outcome.

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NeedMoreTea
> average four-person household in the US uses over 100lb of toilet paper a
> year

Well that's super helpful. Who buys it by the pound? Sheets of paper, or
rolls, yes I could visualise and compare. Not even how many football fields it
covers!

Sounds like a heck of a lot. Probably.

~~~
dlivingston
An average toilet paper roll is 227 grams / roll [0] or ~0.5 lbs / roll.
Consequently, this would be ~200 rolls, or 0.547 rolls per day.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper#Description](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper#Description)

~~~
mc32
That seems on the high side. Maybe quarter roll per day per person.

Using more than that it’s probably cheaper to buy a Toto with the bidet.

~~~
derp_dee_derp
you obviously don't have a wife, girlfriend, or daughters. Women use toilet
paper to clean up their makeup and their _ahem_ , stains, and for a whole
bunch of other things besides just wiping their butts.

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8bitsrule
Relevant Scientific American article.

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-talks-
bidet...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-talks-bidets/)

"Popular everywhere except North America, where Americans use 36.5 billion
rolls of toilet paper annually, switching to bathroom bidets could save some
15 million trees.... 'This also involves 473,587,500,000 gallons of water to
produce the paper and 253,000 tons of chlorine for bleaching.” He adds that
manufacturing requires about 17.3 terawatts of electricity annually....'

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elipsey
I wish those sink-sprayer looking things they have in India would catch on in
the west. It's like a minimum viable bidet. I thought it works better and you
never run out. Maybe a slightly damp butt would be more problematic in cooler
climates...

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sarcasmatwork
Is anyone passing out bidet's for free or low costs?? Don't think so...

~~~
turtlebits
You can get "add-on" bidets for ~$20 which just hook up to your existing water
line.

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nikolay
Since the service inception, my family has been subscribed to bamboo toilet
paper from Tushy [0].

[0]: [https://hellotushy.com/products/tushy-bamboo-toilet-
paper](https://hellotushy.com/products/tushy-bamboo-toilet-paper)

~~~
copperx
That looks extremely expensive for something you use every day.

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hilbert42
This is damn outrageous, anyone whose done any serious woodworking or
carpentry knows how the price of just about every type of lumber has increased
over the past few decades. Seriously, it is now becoming a scarce resource and
wasting high quality wood fiber this way is just plain stupid.

Perhaps we should tax wood fiber to point of where we're all forced to use
recycled stuff or we have to switch back to using old newspaper (as was the
case when I was a kid). Nowadays we no longer use nasty antimony printing
plates, so we've no longer any reasonable excuse not to.

Reckon, many could perhaps do with a stint in the army to toughen up their
posteriors. I recall the stuff it issued was only marginally better than using
leaf droppings.

