Wipe wisely: A comparative look at your toilet paper picks
Let's get right to the point on the great toilet paper debate: Recycled vs. virgin.
Imagine being in the store trying to decide which toilet paper is best for you. It’s about comfort versus environmental concern.
Should you buy virgin, white, soft toilet paper, or should you buy recycled paper because it’s thought to be more eco-friendly? That decision is entirely up to you. Right now, I’ll share some information about each type of toilet paper so you can have more information. Let’s start with recycled paper.
To make new toilet paper, companies have to cook virgin wood pulp. Virgin means that the wood pulp hasn’t been used before. It’s not being recycled; it’s new. The process requires some boiling, some bleaching (usually with non-chlorine agents), and then the addition of softeners to make it feel nice on your skin. Imagine squeezing the Charmin, lol!
Creating recycled toilet paper may be more labor-intensive because it takes more time and chemicals. The reason is that recycling companies begin the process with things that we’ve recycled — that’s how they get their “wood pulp.” It’s not from a tree.
So, for example, they use magazines, paper plates, newspapers, cardboard and other paper items that you dump into your recycle bin. These paper products have all kinds of writing and pictures on them, so de-inking chemicals are required to get the colors off of there. It’s a tedious process to de-ink recycled pulp, but they need to because everyone likes white toilet paper.
For this reason, toilet paper requires (and has residue of) more chemicals than virgin paper! They also may have extra softeners and/or perfumes to improve their feel. And it’s not just toilet paper; it’s in certain baby wipes, flushable adult wipes, facial tissue and some paper towels.
Even Time Magazine wrote an article entitled, “Now We Need to Worry About Harmful ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Our Toilet Paper Too.”
BPAs have been detected in some recycled toilet papers, and these chemicals are hormone disruptors.
The pros of recycled toilet paper brands are sustainability, and it puts to good use all that junk mail you throw out! On the downside, it probably requires — and contains — a few more chemicals. Does this make it more eco-friendly or not? I’m uncertain at this point. Some people worry that it isn’t completely sanitized, but that fear is not warranted.
The pros of virgin toilet paper are softness and wet strength. Most people think it feels better on their skin, but the downside is that it requires new wood pulp. Most people today are mindful of our planet’s resources.
When going to the bathroom, you’ve likely only thought about which direction the toilet paper rolls out from! I've shared some insights to help you ponder over this crucial choice.
Should you wish for a deeper dive into the topic, a more detailed and extensive version of this article awaits on my website, suzycohen.com.
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Wipe wisely: A comparative look at your toilet paper picks
