Shifting to Bamboo Toilet Paper
By Kevin Reed
Over the last 18 months or so, I’ve shifted from tree-based toilet paper to bamboo toilet paper. At the time it seemed like some sort of extreme adjustment. I had to order it online since it’s not available in most (any?) stores. The verdict? After a year I’m making the switch to bamboo permanent. If you’re not there yet, read on.
We all use different amounts of toilet paper. Some people just pull off a little and use what they need, others are spinning off that roll like an orb weaver spider wrapping up a katydid. Therefore there’s a lot of debate around how much the average person uses, but it seems to range from 56-141 rolls a year. Not surprisingly, this actually gets political, where environmentalists push the number up and conservative sources push the number down. And that’s mainly because of all the variables: different people, roll size, roll thickness, 1-2-3-ply, roll length, tree size, tree thickness, wood volume, moisture content in the wood, tree species, and probably some other ones.
Maybe a different measure is just how much we buy as a nation - about 7 billion pounds of toilet paper a year.
Most toilet paper is made from virgin pulp - trees. Trees are cut down, ground up into pulp, mixed with chemicals to form a slurry, run through a tissue paper machine, dried on a massive dryer, rolled, cut into toilet-paper sized rolls, packaged (primarily in plastic), and shipped.
We cut ~13.8 million trees per year for toilet paper in the US and Canada alone. That’s 1,150,000 per month, or about 38,000 trees per day. Even with a wide estimate variance, that’s “a lot of trees” for toilet paper. Trees we could use for other things like lumber and habitat.
Toilet paper was a $51.2 billion global market in 2021 that’s expected to grow to $75B by 2030, so there’s lots of room for disruption and innovation. China uses the most TP, followed by the US and Japan, Germany, the UK, Brazil, and France.
Knowing that the Earth is basically of ball of rock in space (BORIS) covered by a thin layer of available resources, I decided to try some bamboo options.
When bamboo is harvested for products, it regenerates 6-20 times faster than trees and grows back from the same roots. You can harvest from the same patch of land every 4-5 years with bamboo, vs 30-100 years for trees (the range depends on the species). Bamboo fibers can be mixed with recycled paper as well. Bamboo toilet paper is typically wrapped and shipped in recycled/recyclable paper products with no tape.
Currently, US demand is low, so bamboo is shipped in from overseas, a downside that some providers compensate for by offsetting carbon emissions with partners like Flexport or the Carbonfund.org Foundation.
The more demand there is here in the States, the more we can support bamboo farming closer to home and on US soil.
Now for me, I was buying 2-ply tree toilet paper, 380 sheets per roll, 30 rolls per double-plastic-wrapped pack at ~$24. Each roll weighs 7.5 ounces, so that thar’s 225 ounces or a little over 14 pounds of toilet paper (without plastic wrapping), or 10 cents per ounce.
I tried Reel bamboo toilet paper first, and that was $29.99 plus $5 shipping so $34.99 total for 24 rolls. That was 18 months ago so prices have gone up a little since then. Currently this brand is available at Target so you can save shipping if you go there. I needed an excuse to go to Target so I went and got a 12-pack of Reel for $14.08. Each roll is 5 ounces, so the 12 pack is ~20 cents an ounce.
I tried Bim Bam Boo brand which was $32.99 plus $5 shipping for 24 rolls at 4.4 ounces per roll, or 105.6 oz/6.6 lbs. With shipping that’s 35 cents an once. If you take out shipping (like if a store carried it at some point) it would be 30 cents an ounce.
Like any toilet paper, if don’t like the texture of one brand, just try another brand. I’m going to try a few more brands before settling on one and subscribing to shipments, or finding a local store and picking it up there.
Bamboo toilet paper is more expensive, but all new things are more expensive, and part of that “cheap” cost is harvesting trees we can use for other things or leave in place. “Expensive” is relative to what you include as a cost or a savings. To me, the cost is worth it to support/increase demand in bamboo, which in turn will allow more profitable bamboo to be grown here at home and would drop prices over time. Plus demand for trees would drop and that could help with lumber costs and habitat loss. A growing bamboo toilet paper market could help counter growing demand for toilet paper in upcoming years as well.
Other alternatives include hemp toilet paper, which I’ve not tried yet, but will.
Even better would be bidets, but hell, this is America dammit! Still, I personally want to get one and see what they’re all about.
The great news is that bamboo toilet paper is a great option, regardless of whether you access your roll of toilet paper over the top (sane) or under the bottom (completely insane).
