Save our Forest + Cut Toilet Paper

A year ago COVID was turning into a worldwide concern. People could not tell where this virus might take us, thinking it would be a 3 or 4 month hiccup at worse. Social media quickly spread the notion that toilet paper would become the rarest commodity in the western world with imaginations of having to revert to newspaper (given that Eatons catalogues are extinct) to wipe up our bathroom visits. We soon saw overfilled shopping carts of supersized bundles of toilet paper exiting the stores and as seen in the TV commercial with people yelling “start the car”! Stores were selling out. Imagine! …it all seemed ridiculous. We even asked ourselves, “maybe we should be worried”? Could we get caught without this critical tool of the trade?

This long Covid experience has brought us many changes. We have more people than ever working from home, children homeschooling, major reduction in restaurant spending, lumber shortages with sky-rocketing prices.

And then there was the toilet paper crisis and it got us to wondering, "are we tackling this human need with right thinking"? We are cutting down ancient and delicate boreal forests to make ultra-soft toilet paper. In the midst of a climate crisis we are clear-cutting our forest with its storehouse of oxygen and carbon along with destroying animal and wildlife species at alarming rates..

Many decades ago when travelling to Europe my wife 

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

and I were introduced to the bidet. We had no clue what it was for or how it was to be used. Maybe it’s a footbath? In the years since we did figure it out but never brought ourselves to add this plumbing fixture to our home largely because of cost. Several months ago following the toilet paper madness, we checked out the options for a bidet-style replacement toilet seat. Sure enough, they exist. They are simple or as high-class as you want with features like heated seats, heated water, a warm air dryer and more. The simpler model requires no electricity, just connect it to the toilet tank water supply – simple. We found a local dealer who had the American Standard toilet seat, Model 5900A05G.020 Aqua Wash Non-Electric Bidet Seat that cost approximately $150 ($100 at Amazon.ca). Then recently we noticed the Brondell non-electric bidet toilet seat at Costco for $80! (Note: the Brondell has options for elongated or round toilet bowls. Check your toilet before you buy.)


          Bidets are more environmentally sound
                    saving trees and water. 

What does the typical annual toilet paper cost? We estimate that at $1.00 per roll it would likely cost a family in the order $100/person/year for toilet paper. In the US it is estimated that the country uses 36.5 billion rolls of toilet paper every year, and in 2014 spent $9.6 billion on it. Scientific American stated that, “It takes 37 gallons of water to make just one roll of toilet paper.” Producing one roll of toilet paper also requires approximately 1.5 pounds of wood. This adds up to a lot of trees and water. By contrast a bidet only consumes about one pint of water per use.

The bottom line is that using bidets saves a lot of trees and a great deal of water making it a far more ecological solution. After using the bidet toilet seat for almost a year, we would never go back to the old way.  So here is a simple idea that everyone who owns a toilet can help the environment, save money and feel better all at the same time.    Learn more...  

Peace and joy!         
George Guimond ofs