Toilet Paper

Something for people to think about use terry cloth/flannel/fleace instead of tp for wipeing sometimes called "family cloth" Lots of people are takeing this up. Consider just how it would reduce your carbon footprint and save money. Diper pails these days are virtually smell proof and if you washed them every other day even the hot water and detergent use the ammount of chemcical harm being done would be significantly reduced. Consider the amount of toxic chemeicals that are required to make nice white tp. There are lots of articals on the internet about how "family cloth" is done. I also understand from all my reading that it is much more comfortable to use then tp and they find themselves cleaner too, lots of people doing it would not go back to useing tp for those reasons alone. This is something my family is going to be doing. Live green and prosper! When I initally wrote the paragraph above and posted to my facebook notes the number of jerk knee responses to the idea was absolutly amazeing. I often heard thats gross. Some of my family members reacted this way initally when I first brought up this idea. They didn't even stop to consider all the far rangeing repercussions of the idea. After thinking about it throughly and considering things like they would no longer have to worry about thier fingernails going through the tp when they wiped, more thicker and absorbant, softer, and lack of those shards of paper that sometimes get caught in your crack; They conceded that dispite the gross factor that they would indeed be willing to do this. I have heard arguments that wouldn't it be dangerous becouse of the germ potential. I pointed out it would be no worse than useing cloth dipers on childern wich has been happening for centries with no extra ill effects, it was conceeded I had a point. Mostly its our conditioning into all germs are bad, and consumerism that I think are the big barriers. Intrestingly historically at one point things were exactly the opposite. "The 16th century French satirical writer François Rabelais, in Chapter XIII of Book 1 of his novel-sequence Gargantua and Pantagruel, has his character Gargantua investigate a great number of ways of cleansing oneself after defecating. Gargantua dismisses the use of paper as ineffective, rhyming that: "Who his foul tail with paper wipes, Shall at his ballocks leave some chips." "{from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper}

Relevent Facts:.

Consumers use approximately 8 - 9 sheets of paper per toilet use.

We use an average of 57 sheets of toilet paper a day!

 It takes about 384 trees to make the toilet paper that one man uses within his lifetime.

The average person uses 100 rolls of toilet paper per year (over 20,000 sheets).

The daily production of toilet paper is about 83,048,116 rolls per day.

An average tree weighs 1,000 pounds which would yield 450 pounds of bleached chemical pulp, assuming a 90% converting yield, approximately 810 rolls of toilet paper would be produced from a single tree

One tree produces about 100 pounds (45 kg) of toilet paper and about 83 million rolls are produced per day.

An average American uses 50 pounds (23 kg) of toilet paper per year which is 50% more than the average of Western countries or Japan. Millions of trees are harvested in North America and in Latin American countries leaving concerns about ecological footprints. Americans also use "toilet paper" for industrial purposes such as oil filters,which may distort the usage statistics.

Toilet paper is generally made from new or "virgin" paper, using a combination of softwood and hardwood trees. Softwood trees such as Southern pines and Douglas firs have long fibers that wrap around each other; this gives paper strength. Hardwood trees like gum, maple and oak have shorter fibers that make a softer paper. Toilet paper is generally a combination of approximately 70% hardwood and 30% softwood.
Other materials used in manufacture include water, chemicals for breaking down the trees into usable fiber, and bleaches. Companies that make paper from recycled products use oxygen, ozone, sodium hydroxide, or peroxide to whiten the paper. Virgin-paper manufacturers, however, often use chlorine-based bleaches (chlorine dioxide), which have been identified as a threat to the environment

Hardwood trees take signifigantly longer to grow to maturity then softwood trees.

To make toilet paper about 50 tons of wood chips are mixed with 10,000 gallons of cooking chemicals

Relevent Links:
http://www.toiletpaperhistory.net/toilet-paper-made/how-is-toilet-paper-made
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/destroying-forests-to-make-toilet-paper-is-wo/blog/25513
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-6/Toilet-Paper.html
http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/389009/family-cloth-what-nobody-ever-told-you
http://sortacrunchy.typepad.com/sortacrunchy/2009/09/3-reasons-to-use-cloth-toilet-paper-aka-family-cloth.html
http://www.suite101.com/content/going-green-with-the-family-cloth-a69610
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4685 (not into the buy the premaid wipes bit at the end of this but a useful artical none the less)
http://www.the-cloth-diaper-connection.com/familycloth.html
http://www.pennilessparenting.com/2010/06/reusable-toilet-paper-family-cloth.html
http://www.ourwildcraftedlife.com/2011/02/our-system-of-family-cloth.html
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Family-Cloth-cloth-toilet-paper-wipes-etc/125278230858455?sk=wall
http://rosiedreams.com/make-your-own-family-cloth/
http://www.birthroutes.com/home/2009/11/3/on-family-cloth.html
http://gracified.livejournal.com/146301.html