Oblogatory Anecdotes » environmental issues http://www.oblogatoryanecdotes.com Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:46:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Too Soft for the Environment http://www.oblogatoryanecdotes.com/environment/too-soft-for-the-environment http://www.oblogatoryanecdotes.com/environment/too-soft-for-the-environment#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:37:05 +0000 admin http://oblogatoryanecdotes.com/?p=59 In the late 1980s I went to China with a group of chiropractors.  We were on a tour and back then, China for tourists was not the same China for the Chinese (and it still may not be). The money was different and so was the food that were served. The accommodations, not just in the hotel, but in restaurants and tourist attractions, especially when it came to restroom facilities. I didn’t realize how very different the restrooms were until I inadvertently went into restroom for employees at the jade factory we were visiting. As I entered, a Chinese woman in full view was urinating into a communal trough-like unit. She didn’t look up and when she was finished, she proceeded to “dry off” with a towel (the one and only towel in the room).  I am a female, so my quick exit had nothing to do with being the wrong gender. When I went back downstairs I found the ladies room for tourists with all of the familiar amenities. Now, you may be wondering why I’m retelling that moment after all these years. Well, the fact of the matter is that I was just now reminded of it when I read an article in The Washington Post about environmentalists wanting to “wipe out plush toilet paper.”

“It’s a menace, environmental groups say — and a dark-comedy example of American excess.” I would have to agree with that assessment. While some of us, myself included, may purchase recycled paper goods, like most Europeans do, there is apparently a “demand” in the U.S. for not just plush toilet paper, but three-ply “ultra plush.” And, plush toilet paper is usually made by chopping down and grinding up trees that may be decades or even a century old.

Let’s face it, anatomically, we humans are all alike head to toe and all parts in between. In order to help save the trees, we may not need to go as far as sharing one towel among many users, but certainly single-ply, recycled paper is good enough for any of us when it comes to the environmental bottom line.

Full article and sources at washingtonpost.com

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