Contributing writer
My parents, having come of age during the Great Depression, had a list of necessities that they always kept around. When I say “list,” it wasn’t a formal list written down in black ink on white paper. It was a mental list that, when fulfilled, comforted them.
Top on the list was soap — hand soap, dishwashing soap, laundry soap. In the pantry, there were the basics of food: oil, flour, sugar, dried beans, lentils, wheat. Under the lean-to: wood, split and stacked. In the barn: hay. In the pasture: a milk cow, preferably. In the garage: a huge carton of toilet paper.
Having grown up with the catalog in the outhouse, toilet paper — preferably purchased on sale — was a must for Mom and Dad. When we hired a moving van to bring them from Oregon to Ramona, there were several cartons of toilet paper in the truck, along with fruit Mom had canned because, “We don’t want to waste this and I’m sure I’ll have a hard time finding that in Ramona.”
Having established how important toilet paper is to my family, imagine my shock when I read that something like 5 percent of trees cut down nationwide, are made into toilet paper and facial tissue products.
Can you believe it? Now we are hitting below the belt in the recycling world when you might suggest that I exchange my soft, cushy, aloe-enhanced, T-paper for bottom wipers made from recycled paper.
How spoiled are we? Europe has been using T-paper made from recycled products for some time and it’s usually single-ply, while we want several plies in our potty-paper.
By this time, I’m muttering to myself about all the little inconveniences of recycling.
I thought I was doing pretty good to save cardboard instead of burn it.
I’m saving cans — even rinsing them out and removing the label.
I’m carrying my own water bottle instead of buying water in little convenient plastic bottles that just muck up landfills.
I buy big bottles and refill smaller bottles of shampoo and conditioner.
There’s a stack of magazines in the garage for recycling — and this is after I’ve already recycled them to friends and family for reading.
But now toilet paper? I need to re-think what kind of toilet paper I use. Will I be reduced to using that scratchy brown stuff that’s about two steps above the Sears and Roebuck catalog?
OK. OK. For the time being, I’m buying in bulk and watching my consumption. And I’m disgusted with a name brand toilet paper. Do you know what they did? They offered a 12-pack of toilet paper for a bargain price and when I got home, I discovered that the tubes around which the paper is wrapped are so big they go spinning on the toilet paper spool and give you lots more paper than you wish for one sitting, dumping a whole roll on the floor. In their attempt to make less look like more, they’ve duped the consumer (me) and caused me to waste more of the earth’s resources. Naughty, naughty!
I’ve had to pad my spindle with a recycled sock to keep this from happening.
I’m writing them a letter and suggesting that big corporations should get behind, so to speak, the recycling movement, no pun intended.
“Instead of attempting to fool the public, their consumers, they should be leaders in conservation.” That’s what I’m telling them.
Furthermore, they just lost a customer.
Tim got a catalog yesterday from Gaiam. I always have to chuckle when that publication comes to him because there’s something incongruous about a magazine for women who do yoga being addressed to TTT. They also offer other resources for conservation like recycled paper products and safe, earth-friendly cleaning supplies. Tim bought me a compost bin for my birthday several years ago and that’s how his name got on their list. Anyhow, here I am leafing through the magazine and what to my wondering eyes should appear but toilet paper made from recycled paper.
It comes by the carton to fulfill my inherited need for stockpiling and in several choices of ply and it’s white!
It’s another day in the country and my conservation choices are requiring another adjustment on my part. The nature of change, progress, and enlightenment evidently requires a body to adjust, adjust and keep adjusting so long as we all shall live.