Whilst doing some research on the subject I came across the following quote on toiletpaperworld.com

"In the early 1970s, an EPA study for Congress concluded that using one ton of 100% recycled paper saves 4,100 kwh of energy (enough to power the average home for six months) and 7,000 gallons of water. It also keeps more than 60 pounds of pollution out of the air and saves 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space, which is increasingly important as many local landfills near their capacity. Paper industry representatives have actually estimated that one ton of recycled paper saves approximately 17 trees."

I was quite shocked by this, firstly because I couldn't believe that there was a website devoted to toilet paper, but secondly by the size of the environmental benefits of recycled toilet paper.

If this is true then the energy savings alone would be reason enough to use recycled toilet paper, but together with savings on landfill, pollution and water usage then surely recycled toilet paper must be the choice of the environmentalist?

The saving of 17 trees sounds impressive too, but most of these trees would be from plantations which are of low biodiversity, so that is less important than perhaps it sounds. However, some of the pulp for toilet paper (including recycled toilet paper) comes from virgin forests, so any saving is lenghtening the lifetime of these forests.

However, there is the problem of bleaching in the process of making recycled toilet paper!

Still, this article suggests that there are real environmental benfits to using recycled toilet paper, just so long as one realises that using it does not mean that there is no environmental impact: Behind the label: Recycled Toilet Tissue.

Last year I wrote an essay on Waste managment in the UK for college, and I was thinking about this issue again the other day.

Much is made of recycling, everyone seems to be getting on the bandwagon; lots of supermarkets now have plastic bag recycling bins and the bins for glass are now ubiquitous.

I recently read some interviews with leading business people questioning them on their "green" credentials and all of them said that they recycle, as if this made up for all the other activities they might be involved in.

What worries me is that the recycling message seems to have become the dominant force and that other ways of dealing with waste have become sidelined.

The waste management hierachy (left) indicates that the best way of dealing with waste is to reduce it; i.e. don't make it in the first place. Second on this list is to re-use; milk bottles delivered to the front door in the UK are a good example of this; an interesting article on the Daily Pinta is on J's blog.

In fact, recycling is third down the list in the ideal way of dealing with waste, but it is firmly number one in the public's eye. This indicates that we are far from the problem of the massive amounts of waste we create, and consequently the large amounts of CO2 that are emitted in the production of this waste.

In the absence of governmental incentives for industry to reduce waste we should try to do what we can; use reusable shopping bags, buy produce at the market where items are not overpackaged and reuse things like jam jars to grow seeds in etc.

I have written on previous posts about how I always (well nearly always) use my reusable shopping bag when I go out. When I mentioned this to my grandmother, she just rolled her eyes and said that she'd been a "green" in this particular way since the 1930s. I guess that these sort of bags were (and maybe still are) the norm for older people, but younger generations are used to having plastic bags to put their plastic bags in.

I recently had to virtually fight with a shop assisstant to prevent them from putting my newspaper in a plastic bag. The assisstant looked at me like I was mad.

I hate plastic bags!

However, Jon and Shawn have taken this to another level with Plastic Bags are the Devil.com. They are attempting to increase awareness of the problem of plastic bags by selling stylish, reusable canvas bags. No doubt they are intending to make a bit of money for themselves as well, and why not? If there is one thing that has the potential to bring environmental ideas to a mass audience, it is the power of the economy - most people seem to live their lives by it. Not only will using a canvas bag benefit the environment in terms of reduced waste and carbon emissions, but $5 of the price of these bags will be donated to The Conservation Fund. If plastic bags are the devil, then perhaps canvas bags can be our saviour?