This morning I learned that terlet paper is generally made from virgin trees, meaning trees that are chopped down expressly for the purpose of wiping my ass. That made me feel really sad. I had a brief out of body experience in which I traveled back in time to a place where people used junk mail for terlet paper. Sears catalogs and whatnot. In this vision, there were happy birch trees waving in the breeze around my outhouse and a butterfly landed on me as I limped out with my tractor section. Nature was happy.
I think Corey and I will stop buying terlet paper and, instead, use the PennySaver or a Giant Eagle flyer. J/k. Really, j dash k.
In all seriousness, I do want to start buying post-consumer recycled terlet paper. I never heard of this before. Isn't it weird when something has been so visible for so long but you just never think about it so you assume it doesn't exist? Like racism! How stupid of me to ignore my paper product usage and pretend it wasn't wasteful.
I learned that the 365 brand that Whole Foods sells is like the best terlet paper out there for nature. It's 100% recycled, more than 80% post consumer, and I'm hoping it doesn't feel like cardboard. Because darn it, Charmin might be bad for nature, but it sure feels nice on my nether regions.
But there's more destruction of nature going on at my house that I want to stop. A few months ago I got jealous of our friends because they use cloth napkins all the time and just wash them. We got TONS of cloth napkins as wedding gifts. I'm going to dig them out of the cupboard and put them in a basket in the dining room so we remember to use them instead of the paper ones.
Since we also have more than 82 dish towels, I'm thinking of just not buying paper towels anymore. I'm not entirely sure about that one, though. I'll have to see how absorbant the Martha Stewart brigade can be. Although I guess we could always use the damn Penny Saver to sop up big spills and just use the dish towels to tidy...Big changes on Duffield Street, folks. First, new terlet paper. Next? A brigther, happier world. Or else a grumpy Corey with a sore bung hole. Stay tuned!
8 comments:
my MIL uses almost no paper towels, only dish towels. She has kind of rough, absorbent terry ones, mostly.
in my kitchen, I use too many paper towels (though I do compost them) because I have too few nicely absorbent dishtowels. I'm slowly remedying that!
seventh generation is 100% recycled terlet paper and would probably feel better than the inserts from the newspaper
I wish toilet paper were unbleached. It's going to end up brown anyway; why do resources have to be wasted to make it sparkling white in the first place?
cloth napkins are green washing... if you use one paper napkin per one cloth napkin it's better for environmental sustainability and economical sustainability to use the paper napkin. Although once you get to 4 napkins to 1 cloth napkin you lose the sustainability edge and the cloth napkin becomes better. And Laura's point that you can use the paper napkins for composting. I need a house so I can start composting...
is that because energy for washing the cloth napkins cancels the waste of paper? even if you're not significantly increasing the size or number of laundry loads you do?? I want to see a source of info please!
em i think the idea is to see what you're working with, to make sure all is clean, no?
Katy, I will warn you that the GE Market District paper feels like sandpaper. I couldn't bring myself to buy it again.
We only use paper towels for exceptionally germy things like patting dry fish or meat. Any sort of spills or wipe ups are done with a rag or towel.
And PeaceLoveMath - if you are using even just one napkin per day, per person, you are definitely increasing your laundry. 14 cloth napkins may not be a whole load, but it's significant. I'm not sure it necessarily equals the energy in producing paper napkins, but it's not a carbon-neutral option, either.
it's the energy/water/chemicals for the washing. i don't have it in print. i took a sustainability course for my MBA over the summer and a scientist was talking about greenwashing and that was one of his examples. another was not using coffee cups. if you use one paper cup then its better then using a coffee mug and washing it between every use but if you wash it between every other use then the coffee mug becomes better than the cup... it was a very interesting course.
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