Sue McMillin's advice to Americans: Stop Using 4-ply toilet paper if you're going to harangue about Trump moving to log in the Tongass National Forest.
"Millions of trees in virgin forests are being logged every year and turned into pulp for toilet paper, tissues... that we use only once and flush or throw away. Boreal forests in Canada are being destroyed for our tushes." - Sue McMillin, Denver Post, Perspective, Sept. 15, 'A Rain Forest Is Burning But We Wipe With Boreal Forests'.
One can then understand why - if "a million acres of forest are harvested annually: for toilet paper and tissues"- an aggravated climate activist writer would be pissed. So it is with Sue McMillin of Cañon City , Colo. who also advised us (ibid.) that instead of using plush toilet paper we could instead "all invest in a bidet" or "use washable rags - yes, they're on the market! - to clean up" e.g. after a poop.. For sure that would save a lot of toilet paper, but somehow I can't see the average American worker bringing his or her "clean up rag" to work each day, and then into the rest room. I mean after using it where are they going to wash it? In the sink in front of co-workers?
Fortunately, Sue does admit that might be a "crazy" proposition so instead recommends switching from the plush 4 -ply stuff (like Quilted Northern) to the vastly more planet- friendly recycled paper. I mean, what are you a citizen of the planet, or an elitist, capitalist wastrel who'd squander boreal forests to protect his or her tender tushy?
Here, McGillin offers her special choices, all of which bear 'A' ratings from the NDRC (National Resources Defense Council). They include:
- Seventh Generation
- Green Forest
- Natural Value
- Trader Joe's
She advocates all of these because "not only is the product made from recycled paper, the company donates profits to building toilets in places that don't have them."
That includes places like India where most of the population must resort to "defecation pits" that must be regularly cleaned out by human workers - usually at night.
She admits she has to "pay a bit" more for a product that most 'Muricans would see as inferior, but "higher demand and competition could bring the prices down". Well, true, but where will the demand come from? I've tried my darndest to get wifey to convert to a 1-ply recycled brand from Costco, but she adamantly refuses. "I will not use any toilet paper that tears apart in my hands!" Ah well. What about 2-ply, reycled Seventh Generation? "No way, Jose!"
But Ms. McMillin's basic point and argument seems to be solid. That is, if you are going to indignantly post on social media about the Brazilian eco-brigand Bolsanaro burning down trees in the Amazon (so farmers can raise beef and soybeans) you have no leg to stand on unless your toilet paper usage is vastly more humble than 4-ply Quilted Northern.
Nor do you have any right to "harangue about the Trump administration's move to allow logging, mining and drilling in Alaska's Tongass National Forest."
As she puts it: "Not that those are not critical issues but we must stop thinking we're not connected to global problems". So, in your choice of that toilet paper, Quilted Northern or Seventh Generation 2-ply, you are either part of the problem, or part of the solution. After all:
"The pulp used for toilet paper, tissues and paper towels comes from the boreal forests that stretch across Canada, Russia, China, Scandinavia and Alaska, just below the Arctic Circle."
She agrees that the rise in digital products - like ebooks - has lessened the demand for writing paper, paper for books, but "that is offset by an increase in production of tissue products."
The rest of us, meanwhile, need to get with the program. After all:
"Every one of us can do something about our shrinking forests, and I don't think our butts will even notice"
Well, maybe some won't notice!
I suspect a much more impactful move - for all trees - would be to halt the spread of junk mail which now engenders 5.6 million tons of wasted paper each year- to go into American landfills. (According to an NYU study.)
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