The film Wall*E had a strong environmental theme. Now Kleenex tissues are featuring Wall*E on their packaging.
Odd. As Greenpeace says:
If you look on the bottom of these boxes, you'll see a little recycled symbol that says: "This box is made from 100% recycled paper." What you won't see on the bottom of that box is a message telling you that the tissues inside it are made from centuries-old trees that were cut from forests that had been around for as much as 10,000 years -- until [Kleenex owner Kimberly-Clark] came along with its clearcutting practices, that is. Nor will the box tell you that K-C refuses to use any recycled material in Kleenex even though doing so would save huge areas of ancient forests.
Check out this Mark Fiore animation:
Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots
Toxic suds want to watch you shower
Ask Umbra on shower caps, computers, and junk mail
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Sean Casten Posted 9:31 am
21 Aug 2008
In other words, if you're enjoying a really soft wipe, you're probably using something close to virgin paper. Kleenex may not be the one worth bashing here, but rather those of us who demand soft tissue paper....
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caniscandida Posted 6:11 pm
21 Aug 2008
For different reasons, I have also wondered about what was done by those adventurous voyagers during the Age of Sail. Where did Christopher Columbus go to relieve himself? What about the Pilgrims on the Mayflower?
As for self-service hygiene on board, it may be asked how Captain Hook is supposed to have managed. OK, he is a fictitious character, and nobody ever replaced a missing hand with a hook -- perhaps. Anyway, he could have used his other hand. But to follow through with that line of thought, there have been numerous people in many cultures and societies, including our own, with grotesquely long fingernails, and one must wonder how those folks manage to wipe themselves.
As for Grist's own beloved Umbra Fisk, who is also Adjunct-Professor of Green Potions at Hogwarts Academy (getting rid of Severus Snape's toxic mess), she perhaps has already done research on pooping babies, and whether cloth diapers, launderable, are in fact preferable to disposable diapers. On the foundation of that research, she might like to comment on whether we would all be doing well, in order to save the Boreal Forest, to wipe ourselves with cloth handkerchiefs, as our ancestors seem always to have done, instead of toilet paper.
And as for the Kimberly-Clark business and the destruction of the Boreal Forest: Right, this has been in the environmental news for a while, and is very sad. But Kimberly-Clark seems to have a near-monopoly in this country. In Duane Reade, the pharmacy/convenience story servicing many neighborhoods in NYC, Kleenex and Scott are the only brands available, plus perhaps a store brand of questionable origin.
And sneezing seems to be more of a problem than pooping. We get Seventh Generation (or some other recycled) paper towels and toilet paper easily enough in our neighborhood. But I am not sure I have seen "facial tissue" made of recycled paper.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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KenG Posted 11:01 pm
21 Aug 2008
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spaceshaper Posted 11:11 pm
21 Aug 2008
Roman soldiers famously carried a small sponge for the purpose of anal cleansing, which they afterwards rinsed. I would guess that their urban counterparts, at least the wealthier ones, might have used some form of bidet, though I do not recall seeing anything resembling that among the circle of stone thrones in the communal facility preserved at Ostia Antica. And they of all our predecessors would seem most likely to have had a slave dedicated to that service - asswipearius?
In more recent history the classic disposable cleanser of rural American asses was of course the humble corn husk, later displaced by a page torn from last year's Sears catalog. Neither of these would seem flushable, so I would expect that these options tended to vanish along with the outdoor privy.
In the medieval period in northern Europe underwear was uncommon, clothing for both male and female of the ordinary classes often comprised no more than tunic and leggings. I suspect that the anus largely went unwiped. Unsanitary as this may sound it is nevertheless the standard practice for the household pets of today who are commonly admitted, post-defecation and uncleansed, to our furniture, our carpets, our laps and even to our beds. They of course do not sit on chairs to excrete as we mostly now do, and we must recognize how unnatural this habit is. The low squat, with the upper thighs pressed against the abdomen, is the stance most conducive to proper peristaltic evacuation of the bowel, and which by spreading the ass-cheeks wide and temporarily extruding a small portion of the lower gut naturally limits the cleansing required of that area. It also reduces the tendency to constipation and hemorrhoids with which, judging by the frequent advertisements for patent medicines, we are currently plagued. We are currently being (ill)advised to raise our toilet seats even higher in the interests of "universal design" - but that's another story.
Southern Europe has long favored the bidet over the use of toilet tissue, even before the advent of the plumbed version. A simple bowl of suitable shape on an iron stand was a common feature of guest rooms in the Italian pensione until quite recently.
In Greece, toilets available to the public in rural areas are still liable to be equipped with notices (usually in English and German as well as Greek) not to flush anything but fecal matter as the drains are not designed to accommodate paper products. A small bin, abuzz with flies, is provided for used tissue. This smelly situation is rapidly changing as EC membership has brought funds for upgrading this and other infrastructure. Seated toilets are a relative novelty there in any case: the squatting 'Turkish' toilet was the standard for many years, as it was also in France and Italy.
Arabic cultures I am told traditionally use the left hand, uncovered, for cleansing the anus and the right hand for eating. Makes sense. Perhaps this was once a more universal custom, and could help explain why we greet each other by shaking only right hands, and why we distrust those sinister left-handed people.
With regards to facial tissue, recycled-paper dinner napkins are generally durable enough to last several days of normal use, though germaphobic Americans might find this practice unacceptable.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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zegg Posted 4:50 am
22 Aug 2008
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spaceshaper Posted 8:30 am
22 Aug 2008
Also a minor gripe. Seems to be no way not to play the animation when refreshing this page. Nor a way to stop it. Irritating.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Wolverine Posted 3:41 am
23 Aug 2008
Anyway, there are two issues here. For facial tissues, by far the best thing to do is buy some handkerchiefs, as Helen Caldicott urged many years ago. There's no reason to be wasting trees on this.
For toiled paper, you can buy 100% recycled unbleached toilet paper, though the cost may be a little higher, not sure.
So, there's no reason to consume trees for either of these things. And there's certainly no reason to consume virgin forests for anything, considering that hemp would provide all the paper products that trees are used for, and without the horrible chemicals that are needed to process trees into paper.
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