Hummers in our bathrooms?

So how bad is our toilet paper habit, really? The product that we use for less than three seconds extracts a larger ecological consequence than driving Hummers, according to Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the NRDC. More than 98% of all toilet paper sold here comes from virgin wood.

snip…

Americans, who use an average of 23.6 rolls per capita a year – more toilet paper than citizens in other countries—three times more than the average European and 100 times more than the average person in China. Europeans and Latin Americans are also less demanding about the quality of their toilet paper, with up to 40% of toilet paper sold in those markets derived from recycled products.

“I really do think it is overwhelmingly an American phenomenon,” said Hershkowitz. “People just don’t understand that softness equals ecological destruction.”

via Ecogeek and The Guardian

How insane is this? I don’t even see virgin wood used to build homes or furniture anymore, but it is used to make bathroom tissue?

I see this issue in a similar light to organic produce.

It isn’t enough for consumers to vote with their wallets and their pocketbooks. Leadership is needed to make the prices and availability of alternative products practical to consumers.

As far as I know Seventh Generation is the only brand of post consumer bathroom tissue. It an cost several dollars per roll depending on where you shop.

When I was a college student I used Seventh Generation bathroom tissue because I was able to special order mammoth cases of it with my housemates at a discount through the co-op I worked for. Not only is post consumer bathroom tissue more expensive, but a roll of post consumer bathroom tissue doesn’t last as long as conventional bathroom tissue. You need to buy and use more rolls.

“Post consumer” means what most people think of as being “recycled”. It was used for something else and instead of grabbing more resources, it was processed so that it could be used again.

“Recycled” with paper products usually only means that paper scraps that would normally be thrown away in creating paper products were gathered up and used instead.

If you can’t spend several dollars per roll of “post consumer” bathroom tissue you can buy normally priced “recycled” bathroom tissue at CVS. Just look for the “recycled” symbol on CVS brand bathroom tissue. Not all types of bathroom tissue with their label is recycled.

BTW, “CVS” stands for “Customer Value Store”. LOL! Their prices must be good because they don’t pay marketers to do things like up with sexy sounding titles :).

Orange Juice

I read this interesting post on Erik Marcus’s blog ( now defunct ) about the new book “Squeezed” about commercial orange juice:

It’s a heavily processed product. It’s heavily engineered as well. In the process of pasteurizing, juice is heated and stripped of oxygen, a process called deaeration, so it doesn’t oxidize. Then it’s put in huge storage tanks where it can be kept for upwards of a year. It gets stripped of flavor-providing chemicals, which are volatile. When it’s ready for packaging, companies such as Tropicana hire flavor companies such as Firmenich to engineer flavor packs to make it taste fresh. People think not-from-concentrate is a fresher product, but it also sits in storage for quite a long time…

I stopped drinking orange juice when I learned what a calorie bomb it is. It is bad as soda for being liquid calories, easy to gulp down and not as filling as solid food with similar calories. Orange juice got supersized with other things. When I was a kid a tiny 2-4 ounce glass of OJ at breakfast was the norm. By the time I was a teenager I was using the stuff like it was water.

I think knowing what I know now, if I want some OJ, I will take the 2 min to squeeze it myself or feel fine buying the cheapest brand in the store knowing that I am not really getting extra with more expensive brands.

Calories In Chinese Food

I love cheap Chinese food. I know it isn’t healthy. I know that it is very caloric. Yet, I was truly amazed by this video put up by the Center For Science In The Public Interest.

I’m amazed because this time they have pictured foods that are similar to what I as a vegan may ask for when I go to these places. The Chinese restaurants I go to have a posted policy of using only vegetable oil. However, the shock that hits closer to home still hits deeper nonetheless.

To put these listings into perspective the “average” person’s calorie needs are about 2000 calories a day. Some people a little more, some people a little less, unless they are in boot camp or they are a serious athlete.

400 – 600 calories is about the size of a reasonable meal for most of us. An extra 250 calories a day is enough to put on 26 pounds of fat over a year.

Stir Fried Greens
Calories: 900 Sat Fat: 11 grams Sodium: 2,200 mg


Tofu & Mixed Vegetables (Homestyle Tofu)
Calories: 900 Sat Fat: 9 grams Sodium: 2,200 mg

The best advice I ever heard about eating out is to ask for half of your food be brought to you wrapped up to go. When I eat Chinese food on the weekend I will either skip lunch or skip dinner ( and I am not hungry ). The portions really are the sizes of two meals.

To see more grisly examples and get tips on mitigating the impact of your Chinese restaurant meal you can check out the full article at https://cspinet.org/new/200703211.html.

The culprit is deep frying for the high calorie count and the various sauces for the high sodium count. Don’t laugh off the sodium count. Articles come out every year linking excessive sodium intake to shortened lives and even osteoporosis.