Green Options

With the spotlight shining on clean energy, the stage has been set for the U.S. to rid itself of a harmful addiction to foreign oil. The stars are aligned and the cards have been dealt. Soon we’ll have kicked the dirty habit, right?

This post was originally published on Eco-Libris’ blog on February 26.

How green is your toilet paper? Not sure? Here’s the guide that will give you the answers: Greenpeace has just released on Monday its latest Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide.

The report is providing customers with important information about tissue products and toilet paper using 3 criteria: usage of 100% recycled paper, at least 50% post consumer recycled paper and bleached without toxic chlorine compounds.

Each category includes ranking of brands, where products that meet 3 criteria are recommended, products that meet 2 criteria are defined as “can do better” and products that meet only one or no criteria at all are “to be avoided”.

Let’s focus for a minute on toilet paper, the most popular product among the ones reviewed in this report. The brand in the first place is Green Forest, which uses 100 percent recycled and 90 percent post-consumer content, as well as chlorine-free manufacturing processes. Other brands that are also recommended are: 365, Natural Value and Seventh Generation.

And who’s to be avoided? Well, when it comes to toilet paper you will find there few familiar names: Scott, Target, Wal-Mart, Kleenex Cottonelle, Chramin, Quilted Northern and Angel Soft. According to the report they all use zero recycled paper (and of course zero post consumer content) and are bleached with chlorine compounds [just take into consideration the follwoing comment from Greenpeace: In the few cases where companies did not respond to our request for verification of recycled content percentages and whitening processes used, we assumed 0% overall recycled, 0% post-consumer recycled and ECF bleaching.]

Growing foreign demand for Canada’s natural resources, as well as ecological pressures from more forest fires and insect infestations, like the pine beetle epidemic are threatening the health and well-being of Canada’s Boreal forests.