Toilet Paper

In 2018, the average consumption of toilet paper in the UK stood at 127 rolls per capita, (or more appropriately, per culus), placing us third in the ranking of most extravagant users of bog roll in the world.

The US, unsurprisingly, topped the chart, whereas our French counterparts used almost half the amount as us Brits, presumably due to the prevalence of the bidet in French lavatory culture.

Flushing away forests

Toilet paper is the throwaway product par excellence, used for a matter of seconds before being disposed of. Despite this, most major tissue brands rely heavily on virgin wood pulp for the production of their toilet tissue. Vast swathes of natural forest are cut down, only to be flushed away after a single use.

A 2017 Greenpeace report, Wiping Away the Boreal, stated that large parts of Sweden’s Great Northern Forest, and the biodiversity contained within it, is under threat from the timber industry’s increasing demand for virgin wood, much of which is used for tissue products.

A 2019 report funded by The Natural Resources Defense Council and Stand.earth ‘The Issue with Tissue’, examined the Canadian boreal, where, between 1996 and 2015, more than 28 million acres of boreal forest was logged.

Over 90% of this logging was done by clear-cutting, a technique also used in the Swedish boreal, which removes nearly all the trees from an area. Clear-cuts can take more than a century to return to pre-logged conditions, while some never do.

Forests play a vital role to life on earth. As well as being home to indigenous communities, and countless species of flora and fauna, forests also help regulate the earth’s greenhouse gases.

Around a quarter of the carbon dioxide contributed by humans to the atmosphere is removed by the world’s forests. Maintaining forests and other natural habitats is, therefore, an essential means of fighting climate change.

Sustainable toilet paper

Nearly all the major brands, such as Andrex, Cushelle and supermarket own-brands, supply toilet tissue that carries the Forest Stewardship Council ‘tree-tick’ stamp, giving assurance, at least in theory, that the timber used to make the product was sustainably sourced.

However, in this guide, Ethical Consumer has taken the line that toilet paper made using virgin wood pulp, even if FSC certified, cannot be considered a sustainable product.

It is hard to justify using virgin wood pulp to make a product that is, by definition, to be immediately disposed of, especially when there are more sustainable options, such as using recycled pulp, which are easily available.

For this reason, products in our score table overleaf were awarded a whole sustainability mark if they used recycled paper, and half a mark if they used sustainably sourced alternatives such as bamboo.

*Toilet paper type refers to two different products.

Recycled toilet paper

Recycled wood pulp is a clear alternative to virgin fibre. 

Pre-consumer recycled content generally comprises of materials left over from the manufacturing process, such as off-cuts, while post-consumer content is material that, rather than being thrown away after the first use, is used for something else, e.g. office paper. 

Often, recycled tissue uses a mix of pre- and post-consumer waste, although the greatest environmental benefits come with the latter.

Toilet paper made from recycled waste has a significantly lesser environmental impact than virgin fibre. 

Firstly, it does not increase demand for living trees to be felled, which allows more forest to remain intact and lessens the amount of material finding its way into landfill.

Furthermore, according to the report, The Issue with Tissue, “the production of virgin wood pulp uses almost twice as much water as producing tissue from recycled materials and generates twice as many hazardous air pollutants.” The chemicals used in the production of recycled paper are also far less toxic than those used to bleach virgin pulp.

The decline of recycled fibre

Despite the negative environmental impacts of using virgin tree fibre, only five brands in our guide did not use any virgin pulp at all for their toilet paper: Ecoleaf, Essential, The Cheeky Panda, Who Gives A Crap, and Traidcraft. Of the major brands and supermarkets, only five currently offered a recycled range: Co-op, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Tesco.

It appears that use of recycled fibre has declined over the years. If we take Kimberly-Clark, one of the biggest suppliers of toilet tissue worldwide, we see that the proportion of recycled wood pulp, as opposed to virgin wood pulp, used by the company has fallen over the years. In 2011, just under 30% of total fibre used was from recycled fibre, but by 2017 this figure had fallen to just over 23.5%.

In 2011, Andrex, owned by Kimberly Clark, released its Eco Bath Tissue, made from 90% recycled fibres and 10% bamboo, but this range was discontinued in 2015.

When contacted by Ethical Consumer about the reasons for scrapping their Eco Bath Tissue, Kimberly-Clark essentially stated a lack of demand:

“the number of people buying into Eco was small, and people now expect sustainability credentials as standard.”

However, the recent rise of smaller brands offering eco-alternatives, such as Who Gives A Crap and Cheeky Panda, implies that demand for environmental alternatives does exist.

The rise of luxury toilet paper

It is difficult to pin down exactly why we have seen a decline in recycled fibre used for toilet roll, but it appears that the trend is, at least in part, as a result of the rise of the luxury toilet paper market. 

In the struggle for market share, brands attempt to offer ever more luxury. 

The race to the bottom, so to speak, is rather a race to the top. You only have to glance at the supermarket shelves to see walls of decadent toilet paper, all promising a lavatory experience fit for the Queen.
 
Virgin pulp is favoured for its apparently greater softness, despite its harmful effect on the forests.

Bleached toilet paper

Bleach is used to whiten, strengthen and soften toilet paper.

For many years, the paper and pulp industry relied heavily on elemental chlorine for bleaching. However, elemental chlorine produces harmful effluents, most notably dioxins, which are considered among the most harmful of man-made toxins.

Since the 1990s, elemental chlorine processes have been replaced by elemental chlorine-free (ECF) and totally chlorine-free (TCF) processes. Despite the name, ECF processes still use a chlorine compound, usually chlorine dioxide, which releases dioxins, albeit in far smaller amounts.

Recycled paper generally requires less bleach than virgin pulp, and some papers are completely chlorine free, often using hydrogen peroxide as a whitening agent, which generates no chlorinated organic compounds.

The following brands stated that they do not use chlorine processes: 
Ecoleaf, Essential, Emerald, Who Gives A Crap (recycled paper only), and The Cheeky Panda. For its bamboo paper, Who Gives A Crap uses a mix of hydrogen peroxide and elemental-free chlorine. Essential lead the way as their tissue is both unbleached and undyed.

It is true that most shoppers want soft paper. 

Research by Mintel, from 2016, suggested that consumer demand for softness and the perceived superiority of toilet paper made from virgin fibre trumped concerns about the environment. However, the blame cannot primarily be placed on consumers.

Businesses do not merely react to consumer taste, but also shape it through advertising and marketing. They therefore have the ability to shape consumer demand, and a responsibility to create products sustainably.

Agricultural residue in toilet paper

Agricultural residues, such as wheat straw, offer another alternative that is more sustainable than virgin wood pulp.

These are substances that are left after the agricultural harvest has taken place.

However, within the EU much of this waste is currently used for biofuel and only a very small proportion (1.5%) is used in industrial production such as being turned into pulp.

The only brand in our guide to use agricultural residues was Emerald, whose toilet paper used sugarcane bagasse and bamboo alongside FSC-certified wood pulp.