Your soft bum is killing the planet

[Stumpy Pepys]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

Ooops, I meant TonTon.

I agree, but Greenpeace do themselves no favours peddling half-truths. If they'd just said the energy that goes into making luxury toilet paper is unacceptable, they'd have my support.

Some of Greenpeace's science has always seemed suspect to me. Aren't they against cholorination of drinking water?

[WOM]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

So much of recycling isn't actually recycling, but decycling. It goes from a superior form of product to one slightly less so each time. And that makes a bit more sense. So, if you use gobs of water and bleach to make white writing paper, the next generation of it should use no bleach and less water. The attempt shouldn't be to make it into white writing paper again, but for bog roll or shipping boxes or whatever. Same with virgin plastic. After it's been a clear bottle, it should be carpet fibres or internal car parts where purity and food-grade quality aren't necessary.

As for Greenpeace, I dunno. I've heard a number of suspicious things about them over the years, but I trust that their intentions are good. Any organization that has so many people doing so much work in so many places is bound to make mistakes. We can't let that undo all its positive actions.

[Guy Profumo]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

1890 wrote:

Felt nice and smug when I read this, I use plain toilet paper made of recycled pulp and it cleans my bottom just fine...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...t-roll-america

But using recycled paper isn't making any difference; the carbon has already been "locked" into the paper the first time it's been made from trees.

You're better off using fresh paper made from replanted ("sustainable") trees that have been set to replace the one you've already used.

Otherwise, more trees are simply going to die, decay, and then re-release their locked carbon (dioxide) back into the atmosphere at no benefit to the "carbon equation"

[Moonlight Shadow]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

Sorry, if given the choice between toilet paper made of recycled paper and stuff that is made of virgin wood pulp then I choose the former, however imperfect it might be, it can only be better than that quilted stuff.

A little reminder, it's stuff you use to clean shit out of your adult arse, you have to be one gullible ad man wet-dream as well as a soft arse to fall for that...

[A Doctor Speaks]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

Guy Potger wrote:

1890 wrote:

Felt nice and smug when I read this, I use plain toilet paper made of recycled pulp and it cleans my bottom just fine...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...t-roll-america

But using recycled paper isn't making any difference; the carbon has already been "locked" into the paper the first time it's been made from trees.

You're better off using fresh paper made from replanted ("sustainable") trees that have been set to replace the one you've already used.

Otherwise, more trees are simply going to die, decay, and then re-release their locked carbon (dioxide) back into the atmosphere at no benefit to the "carbon equation"

Yes, but do you really believe that?

The reason the recycling industry in Britain/N.America is not taken as seriously as it should be, is there's no great will by industry to change antiquated production methods.
And use materials that otherwise will be sent to landfill, for recycling.

To think otherwise, is to be an asshole.....

[hobbes]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

herwise, more trees are simply going to die, decay, and then re-release their locked carbon (dioxide) back into the atmosphere at no benefit to the "carbon equation"

The big difference is release time. Global warming isn't about how much carbon released, so much as the short period of time we've released it in.
Trees lock up carbon for long periods and don't die all at once (unless we chop them down.) So long term there's no difference in the carbon equation, but in the short term there's a massive difference.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

Sorry, I'm not understanding this concept.

If you were to change the word forest to tree farm, then what's the difference between growing trees and growing potatoes? The only one I can see is that it takes maybe 20 times longer to grow a tree than to grow a potato. Once you chop a tree down you plant another one.

Surely the big issue with paper is the energy and chemicals that go into its manufacture.

[Guest]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

I'm certainly no expert here but didn't you just answer your own questions? They're not always tree farms: sometimes they're forests which are not replaced or take a long time to replace.

Should we be manufacturing less paper of all kinds? For sure.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

Having worked as an environmental lobbyist, specifically on forestry stuff, I sort of am (or was) an expert here.

What Horse said.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

Fair enough, but what proportions are we talking about? I always assumed the bulk of the world's paper came from giant man-made forests (many of which seem to be in North America).

[beak]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

Would it not be more sustainable to encourage the growth of hemp? Grows faster, and is easier to turn into paper.

(I ask in relative ignorance.)

[Ginger Yellow]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

The bulk of the world's paper comes from Canada, Finland, Sweden and Indonesia. I'd imagine a lot of the first three countries' exports are sustainable (from a forestry perspective), but I doubt much is in Indonesia. And there's also the issue of monoculture, which dramatically reduces biodiversity (see also palm plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia).

[Caliban]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

In the future, we'll all be switching to something like these.

[Hot Orange]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

In defence of quilty stuff, I find that one tends to need to use far fewer sheets per wipe than with the extremely thin cheap varieties.

Can you get recycled quilty stuff? That would be good.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

Hang on. You think the trees felled to make paper have all been grown for the purpose?

Nope. But Kimberley-Clerk's two main luxury products sold in the UK - Kleenex and Andrex - are both made with pulp from trees grown under FSC conditions for sustainable tree-growing and that. Which are the standards that Greenpeace promote, as far as I'm aware.

[Guest]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

Fair dos.

[Nico Rijnders]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

TonTon wrote:
[quote]

Nope. But Kimberley-Clerk's two main luxury products sold in the UK - Kleenex and Andrex - are both made with pulp from trees grown under FSC conditions for sustainable tree-growing and that. Which are the standards that Greenpeace promote, as far as I'm aware.

Has that changed recently? The sample on the Greenpeace website was in 2007:

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/forests/tissue-guide?filter0=Kimberly-Clark&filter1=Toilet+tissue

[DCI Harry Batt]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

Kleenex in November 2007, Andrex in July 2008, according to the WWF

[Moonlight Shadow]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

To answer a previous comment, the recycled stuff I buy from Sainsbury's is pretty decent quality, not ultra thin and unless you have the runs, you don't need half a roll to wipe your bum. I do find that when I use quilted paper (at the Daily Mail reading inlaws) I use the same quantity as I don't want the risk of ripping the paper and find myself with cacked fingers.

[Gangster Octopus]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

See your recycled toilet paper, and raise it...

[Bruno]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

I would much prefer that method to the tedium of TP. And it's the only way to go for a young'un who's messed his diaper. Reduces diaper rash to pretty much nil.

[Caliban]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

It's a good idea, you can get the attachments here and fit them yourselves.

On the diaper rash subject, I do know of someone who used to hold their baby in the toilet flush after particularly nasty incidents. It's got to be a better idea than that.

[Twilight Johnny Atom]

Your soft bum is killing the planet

For those of us whose shower heads don't reach the toilet, this will be in supermarkets soon:

http://www.elephantroll.com/

Made using wood from sustainable forests and a donation to a good cause at the same time. That works for me.