Making a Case for the Bidet
Fifteen million trees. That’s what it takes to make the collective 36 billion rolls of toilet paper Americans use each year to clean their posteriors. That doesn’t include the 437 billion gallons of water and 253,000 tons of bleach—not to mention the prodigious energy required—for actually manufacturing the paper.
As the world looks for more sustainable ways forward, bidet sales are booming. According to BRG Building Solutions’ 2018 North American Shower, Toilet & Bidet Seat Markets report, bidets are currently a $106 million industry, poised to grow 15 percent annually through 2021.
Does this mean Americans are ready to forgo paper for water?
Rose George, who studied restroom habits extensively for her book The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters, hopes so. “The Natural Resource Defense Council found that the majority of the world’s toilet paper comes from the boreal forests in Canada, which is being clear-cut at a rate of a million acres a year to feed our toilet paper mania,” Rose says.
Her research found that Americans use about 100 pounds of toilet paper per household each year and are responsible for 20 percent of the world’s bathroom tissue consumption (despite being only 4% of the population). Not only are bidets better for the forest, they’re arguably better for us health-wise.
Rose says using toilet paper to clean ourselves “makes as much sense as getting filthy gardening, then coming inside to rub yourself clean with a dry towel. Toilet paper moves shit, but it doesn’t remove it. We use water to clean our cars, our windows, our dishes, but not to clean the dirtiest part of our body. It’s baffling.” Studies have found that wiping with dry paper alone can contribute to issues like infections and itching.
Amin Herati, director of Men’s Health at the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute and assistant professor of Urology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, says bidets are often favored for patients with hemorrhoids, as the water approach causes less irritation. It also requires less contact with your nether-region, so it should theoretically cut down on potential transmission of diseases. That being said, using a bidet does not eliminate germs. And given current events, it’s worth reminding you to still wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.
So should you make the switch? Rose thinks so. In fact, she’s so invested in the bidet life, that she carries a battery-powered travel bidet in her purse. “I wouldn’t be without it,” she says.
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Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
