Ugh toilet tissues? Are rolls of toilet tissue a part of the global warming problem too?
Yes indeed.
Trees can save us from global warming—but manufacturers of toilet tissues use enormous numbers of trees to produce that soft white willy-roll.
We know now that global warming is in great part the result of humans dumping waste carbon dioxide (CO2) gas much of it resulting from our love affair with the internal combustion engine. This waste gas belches from our innumerable auto exhausts, our power plant smoke stacks and our home heating systems and is dispersed into our atmosphere. The gas has always been there, just not as high a concentration as it is now. CO2s significance is that it has an unusual physical property. It is a gas that is able to absorb long wave radiation (heat waves) arising from the earth’s sun-heated surfaces. As CO2 warms, it, in turn, heats the other gases of the atmosphere, causing general atmospheric warming. Warmer air can melt glaciers, causing sea level rise. But warmed air can also result in more intense storms, stronger winds, more intense droughts, more snow storms and deeper snow falls as well as general intensification of weather phenomena. Paradoxically, intense winter snow storms and snow accumulations are NOT a sign that global warming is unreal or is exaggerated—but these are the result of more energy in the atmosphere, i.e. a result of a warmer atmosphere.
Human-generated carbon dioxide does not easily cycle out of the atmosphere, but tends to accumulate. Scientists can document the steady rise in concentration of this gas since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (@ 1850s). Why has CO2 risen? Since that time humans have been simultaneously engaged in a form of synergistic activities which both cause carbon dioxide levels to rise. Since the dawn of civilization people have been cutting down forests (which absorb CO2). More recently since the 1850s human have been unearthing buried fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and burning them in the atmosphere for use as a source of energy. Burning fossil fuels generates carbon dioxide as a waste product. As a consequence of these two human deforestation and fossil fuel exploitation—the level of CO2 had been rising steadily over the years. As a result of the heat absorbing property of this gas and its increased concentration the atmosphere has gradually warmed.
A recent study (Science, “The global tree restoration potential”, J.F. Bastin, Feingold, Y. C. Garcia, July 05 2019) has revealed that if we were to reestablish a significant portion of the world’s former forest zones (on about 11% of the earth’s land area or an area comprising almost 1 billion hectares or about the area encompassed by the USA and China combined) by replanting trees (reforestation) that were cleared over the centuries for agricultural purposes, for fuel, as a result of urbanization, for forest products, forest fires, deforestation, road construction, etc, etc. we could reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to levels close to what they were before the industrial revolution.
Yes we could (combined with ending deforestation and controlling fossil fuel use) plant trees to “reforest” ourselves out the threat of global warming . But such a process would require considerable changes in our lifestyles, and yes even to our personal habits.
We must STOP deforestation and confront the problem of rampant fossil fuel use. There is often much hand wringing and threats of disaster in these discussions. Most are concerned with limiting our use of gas guzzling vehicles, cutting out coal to produce our electricity, lowering our consumption of beef, etc. etc. But few of these discussions mention the awful cost to our environment related to excessive use and waste of paper—especially— toilet tissue.
Hardly anyone realizes that that lovely soft. white, toilet tissue roll we purchase in the super market is made from dense, hard, scratchy cellulose derived from trees. Wood pulp is what paper is made of. It comes from trees. In the process of paper manufacture living trees are cut down, massive areas of forest are cleared and enormous quantities of fresh clean water are required to produce the needed pulp. Let’s look at the the numbers, just focusing on the trees required for the process.
The average person in the USA uses about 100 toilet toilet rolls per year. To produce that amount of soft, white, virgin paper, manufacturers must cut down and process 7-8 trees/ 100 rolls/per year and process it into wood pulp which is then further washed, (lots of water wasted) dried (energy used). and chemically treated (pollution to streams rivers) to produce paper. How many trees does an average person use over their lifetime for toilet tissue? Assuming a human lifetime of approximately 78 years would require cutting and processing (@7.5 X 78 yrs = 585) about 585 (or almost 600 trees) or @ 600 trees per human lifetime. Thus to salsify the sanitary needs of one person for a lifetime requires the clearing (at about 9 x 9 foot forest spacing) about one-acre of mature trees. That is a veritable forest of trees per person—just for —well you know what I was going to write here.
It’s disgusting to contemplate. Beautiful trees that stabilize soil, recycle water into the earth, provide shade to cool the earth, and habitat for wildlife—and critically at this juncture in our history they absorb excess carbon dioxide from the air that can save us from global warming.
These valuable ecological assets are being cut down, and processed into pulp in the process using thousands of gallons of water (at a rate of 3 gallons of water for each pound of paper produced). The messy process requires heat and energy for drying, chemicals for beaching, more energy for packaging and transportation and after all that, being flushed down the toilet as waste.
This is not the end. That human waste and paper eventually decomposes and generate more carbon dioxide gas and methane and are in the end required to be pumped up and removed from exurban or suburban cesspools or in cites and other urban areas are processed by sanitary treatment facilities into dry waste.
In Europe and parts of Asia where trees are scarce, people used only running water for this sanitary purpose. The Romans constructed large and efficient public latrines with running water for this purpose. They did not use paper. Europeans, and some Americans too— in more recent years routinely use a bidet which is designed for this specific purpose.
Americans with their formerly vast forests, did not have to contemplate bidets as an alternative. In the past and all too frequently now, Americans are happy (though not so clean) with their tree killing, water-wasting, high energy, inefficient, unsanitary “crunched-up-paper rear-end scrubbing system”.
After a trip abroad, I often overheard haughty, though ill informed, Americans deriding the “unclean” French, Germans and Spanish who showered o bathed less frequently , but used that “other gadget” next to the toilet, every time they entered that room.
But if we are to begin to face our problem of global warming today and into the future, we will all have to contemplate life in which Moreo trees are panted than cut down, less fossil fuels are used and more of us using less toilet tissue and more of us using that “other gadget”— a bidet—, which creates an efficient cleansing spray of water as a needed and sensible alternative to using —unsanitary, messy, toilet-clogging, cesspool-stuffing, sewer-sludge-forming— forest destroying, toilet paper for this purpose.
Save an acre of forest trees in a lifetime. Save our planet. Install a bidet and cut down on paper use.
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