More Than Fit To Print [John Ennis]

There are legitimate environmental issues, and then there is fluff. When you advocate for less fluff in toilet paper, you are undermining other important concerns, which the New York Times fails to realize:

Americans like their toilet tissue soft: exotic confections that are silken, thick and hot-air-fluffed.

The national obsession with soft paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra — which in 2008 alone increased its sales by 40 percent in some markets, according to Information Resources, Inc., a marketing research firm.

But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.

[...]

The country’s soft-tissue habit — call it the Charmin effect — has not escaped the notice of environmentalists, who are increasingly making toilet tissue manufacturers the targets of campaigns. Greenpeace on Monday for the first time issued a national guide for American consumers that rates toilet tissue brands on their environmental soundness.

[...]

“No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper,” said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defense Council.

It sounds like it is the environmentalists, not Americans who have an "obsession with soft paper". But, really, what is the problem here? Aren't trees a renewable resource? If you cut one tree down, can't you plant a replacement? After all, North American forests are growing.

You would think a newspaper would understand this concept, yet the article laments:

But people who buy toilet tissue for their homes — even those who identify themselves as concerned about the environment — are resistant to toilet tissue made from recycled paper.

Maybe those "concerned about the environment" realize this isn't an environmental concern. Not every environmentalist crusade trumpeted by Greenpeace is about the environment. Some causes are simply aimed at training the masses to do without luxury. Today you forego soft t.p., tomorrow they ask you to ditch your car. 

But, if the Times is still worried about this crisis, let's put two and two together. The Times wants Americans to use more recycled toilet paper. Meanwhile, the Times is printed on recycled paper. Hmmmmmm......

Comments

[Bookdoc]

As was noted on another blog-the trees used to make toilet paper, paper towels, newsprint, etc is NOT "old growth" forest. It is fast growing cash crop trees that produce the pulp. It's farming.
It's just more of the same tree hugger nonsense to get us to live the way the elite want the serfs to live.

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