Guest Blogger: Jake Romano, John The Plumber
Toilet paper is wiping out Canadian forests. It’s wiping out forests worldwide, actually. According to National Geographic, 27,000 trees are used for toilet paper worldwide every day.
To paint that picture, let’s use the beloved Maple Tree. Maple orchards often have a planting density of 40-70 trees per acre. Using Maples as an example and assuming 70 maple trees per acre, the world uses over 385 acres of forest per day for the production of toilet paper.
The City of Kingston has a landmass of about 450km², which translates to around 112,000 acres. This means that in less than a year of toilet paper use, a forest the size of Kingston is wiped out.
If that doesn’t sound like much, consider this: nearly ten million trees are used for toilet paper production per year, and many people think that this number is conservative.
A mature tree absorbs about 48 pounds of CO2 annually. That means that we might be lowering our CO2 reduction capability by over 480 million pounds every year.
To be fair, many paper companies replant trees in what becomes “managed” forests. But these trees require time before they mature enough to have anything close to a comparable environmental impact. Furthermore, the life in these forests will never be the same as it once was.
Besides the diversity of plant life, I wonder what happens to the animals after being forced from their homes, or worse.
Some of you out there might be rolling your eyes. After all, plants can be regrown, and animals can move on, right?
I didn’t even mention the wasted water during production, the chemicals used for processing, or the resources used and burned for manufacturing, transportation and distribution.
One possible solution is toilet paper made from recycled paper. While this is undoubtedly better than the norm of using virgin paper, the process still uses a considerable amount of energy during the manufacturing process and transportation. On top of that, some people fear that the chemical Bisphenol A, or BPA, makes its way into recycled toilet paper via recycled thermal paper, which could be linked to cancer.
That being said, many experts think that the risk is minimal. But could there be a completely safe and environmentally friendly alternative?
Well, Jake Romano of John The Plumber, local plumbers in Kingston, had an interesting and multi-beneficial solution: Bidets!
Bidets are plumbing fixtures that can be standalone units or toilet add-ons used to clean your private parts after using the toilet. Think of bidets as a shower for your bum!
These devices offer several benefits and should be considered in most homes.
The first benefit is that bidets offer a superior cleaning compared to toilet paper. Think about it! Toilet paper wipes human excrement off your anus. If you picked up poo with your bare hands, would you wipe it off with toilet paper and be done with it?
No way! You’d never pick poo up with your bare hands, and if you did, you would wash thoroughly before moving on.
Many people feel the need to thoroughly wash up after using a toilet, especially before participating in any intimacy. Oftentimes, many of these people turn to flushable wipes.
First of all, these wipes aren’t truly flushable, and they can wreak havoc on your drain system and sewers. Second of all, they’re another wasteful product that harms the environment.
The second benefit of a bidet is that they save tons of money! While the price of toilet paper often goes unnoticed due to necessity, it’s wildly expensive! The average person uses 100 rolls of toilet paper per year, and according to Statista, the average retail cost of toilet paper in Canada is about $0.65 a roll! Every dollar adds up, especially considering how many people are struggling during these unprecedented times.
The third benefit is bidets reduce drain issues and prevent clogs. This point doesn’t require much explanation, as toilet paper is one of the primary causes of toilet blockages.
There are several other notable bidet benefits that we could discuss, but considering you’re reading this on Sustainable Kingston, we’ll discuss the environmental benefits!
Bidets save trees, they save copious amounts of chemicals being used and burned, and they even save vast amounts of water.
Treehugger.com states that making a single roll of toilet paper requires 37 gallons of water. This means that Kingston’s toilet paper usage requires over 505 million gallons of water per year!
Personally, I can’t even fathom what that number truly indicates. But I know that it’s a lot of wasted resources! Compare this to the 15 seconds of water spray needed to wash your bum, and I think we clearly have an environmental winner.
Will bidets save the world? Not on their own. But every positive change is a step in the right direction, and every little bit makes a difference.
There are countless DIY bidet add-ons available for your toilet, and many of them are cheaper than a single Family Plus pack of Cottonelle. But if you want a professional bidet installation, call John The Plumber. John The Plumber and his team are the Kingston bidet experts and the plumbers near you that you can count on!