September 24, 2021

Sustainable and Green: Why We Switched to Bamboo Toilet Paper

Sheet Glory is coming out!

We’re unrolling the best decision we’ve ever made: Switching to bamboo toilet paper.

To be honest, it was a no-brainer.

Why?

Get yourself a bamboo coffee cup (yep, it’s a thing!) and keep sc-rolling!

The Most Sustainable Toilet Paper Material

Let’s start from the (bamboo) roots.

Bamboo is not a tree, which is already a massive advantage over toilet paper materials like virgin and recycled paper.

But what makes bamboo a perfect candidate for making toilet paper is that is the fastest growing plant on Earth. In the worst-case scenario, this grass reaches maturity in about 7 years. This is still a very short time when compared to the 30 years you need to wait before harvesting a tree.

And you don’t even have to replant bamboo because it self-regenerates as you prune it.

The Result of This?

You can harvest bamboo once a year.

The most unbelievable thing is that bamboo high-speed growth is 100% natural, meaning you don’t need to feed it any fertilizers. And the grass requires 30% less water and land to prosper.

Producing bamboo fibres release 30% less CO2 than the manufacture of virgin tree-based fibres.

Though, bamboo is not only an excellent feedstock for toilet rolls. It’s also a planet-friendly resource as it captures 5 times more carbon than trees as well releasing 35% more oxygen.

However, to be truly sustainable, bamboo has to be responsibly sourced (no forest clearcutting). So, you want to look out for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) label. Which is what you’ll find on Sheet Glory plastic-free biodegradable packaging as our suppliers are FSC-certified.

Even Greener Than 100% Recycled Toilet Paper

Virgin toilet rolls don’t stand a chance against bamboo tissue from an environmental standpoint.

But how about 100% recycled paper?

Recycled toilet paper brands advertise their product as the most eco-friendly option.

However, although being much greener than conventional toilet tissue, you can recycle waste paper only up to seven times before the fibres lose their quality. After that, you’ll also have to feed virgin fibres to the pulping process.

In addition, recycled paper fibres need to be heavily bleached to reach a sufficient degree of softness. Not to mention the bisphenol-A (BPA) contained in the waste paper, that eventually end up in the final rolls.

On the other hand, you can produce luxuriously soft and BPA-free bamboo tissues with a less harsh chemical process.

Wiping Big Paper Out

While many bamboo and recycled toilet paper brands are sprouting, three giants like Proctor & Gamble, Kimberly Clark, and Georgia-Pacific still dominate the market. Big Paper companies sell about 80% of the toilet paper made in USA.

But that can’t roll on for long…

Mostly because these producers are harming the planet.

In their last report, the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) graded 95 toilet paper brands based on their sustainability practices.

And guess who got the lowest score of all?

Yep, Big Paper.

NRDC penalized those corporates because they destroy forests to produce their toilet tissue. Most of all, their manufacturing activity is clearcutting the Canadian boreal ecosystem, which stores twice as much the amount of carbon that would be released by using the world’s oil reserves.

Nevertheless, they try to wipe out their guilt with greenflushing tactics!

What’s that?

For instance, they’re spending billions of dollars to advertise their environmental “efforts” like planting trees, when they should stop cutting them down in the first place.

Also, Big Paper often claim they’re causing forest degradation (clear-cut land used for regrowing trees) rather than deforestation (clear-cut land not used for regrowing trees). While this is technically true, trees will take ages to grow back, so forest degradation is still detrimental in terms of biodiversity and climate change.