Environmentalists Seek to Wipe Out Plush Toilet Paper

Baack · Sep 30, 2009

PARK, N.J. -- There is a battle for America's behinds.
It is a fight over toilet paper: the kind that is blanket-fluffy and getting fluffier so fast that manufacturers are running out of synonyms for "soft" (Quilted Northern Ultra Plush is the first big brand to go three-ply and three-adjective).
It's a menace, environmental groups say -- and a dark-comedy example of American excess.
The reason, they say, is that plush U.S. toilet paper is usually made by chopping down and grinding up trees that were decades or even a century old. They want Americans, like Europeans, to wipe with tissue made from recycled paper goods.
It has been slow going. Big toilet-paper makers say that they've taken steps to become more Earth-friendly but that their customers still want the soft stuff, so they're still selling it.
This summer, two of the best-known combatants in this fight signed a surprising truce, with a big tissue maker promising to do better. But the larger battle goes on -- the ultimate test of how green Americans will be when nobody's watching.
"At what price softness?" said Tim Spring, chief executive of Marcal Manufacturing, a New Jersey paper maker that is trying to persuade customers to try 100 percent recycled paper. "Should I contribute to clear-cutting and deforestation because the big [marketing] machine has told me that softness is important?"
He added: "You're not giving up the world here."
Toilet paper is far from being the biggest threat to the world's forests: together with facial tissue, it accounts for 5 percent of the U.S. forest-products industry, according to industry figures. Paper and cardboard packaging makes up 26 percent of the industry, although more than half is made from recycled products. Newspapers account for 3 percent.
Click to expand...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/23/AR2009092304711_pf.html?j

cherokee96red · Sep 30, 2009

Be kind to your behind!
used that European stuff, more like crepe paper for parties, not what I wanna use on my derriere.

truckermario · Sep 30, 2009

Fine. Make the paper 30% thinner and 30% less soft, and I use 30% more sheets.

kajidono · Sep 30, 2009

These idiots need to butt out already.

Donk · Oct 1, 2009

Oh no, not the Sly Stallone TP!!! It dont take Crap off of no-one!

Brickman · Oct 1, 2009

truckermario said: ↑

Fine. Make the paper 30% thinner and 30% less soft, and I use 30% more sheets.
Click to expand...

I have always failed to see the logic behind the places that use this stuff. Worthless stuff that is so thin and weak it pulls apart just attempting to roll some off. And yes you gotta use a stack about 1'' thick.
If yous don't know why, I can't help you.

Gearjammin' Penguin · Oct 1, 2009

May they all be stricken with a horrendously agonizing case of piles. Then let's see how much they whine about plush TP.

kajidono · Oct 1, 2009

They'd prefer we all use leaves. They're like the ultimate luddites without even realizing it.

Ken · Oct 1, 2009

I guess we better start saving corn cobs..

kajidono · Oct 1, 2009

Or sea shells.

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