Friday, March 06, 2009

Taking issue with toilet tissue

Perhaps one of the good things to come out of the economic meltdown is that the public is finding itself forced to be a trifle less self-indulgent and perhaps we will learn to be more accepting of a few inconveniences and discomfort.

And in that the self-righteous crusaders at Greenpeace are way ahead of you. You see, Greenpeace cares about how you wipe your bum.

For centuries human beings had been driven by a desire to find an ideal way to, ahem, clean up after answering nature’s inevitable call. In none of this do I intend to be indelicate, by the way but, hey, we all do it. Even the Queen does it. It’s that great human leveller. Winston Churchill once suggested that the ideal way to rid yourself of stage-fright if you are called upon to speak in public is to picture your audience, no matter how distinguished it might be, naked. I’ve often thought that even better would be to picture those people moving their bowels or urinating.

But, dignity aside, the quest has always been one of dealing with the realities of the situation in the most comfortable way possible. That is delicate territory down there and we naturally seek a way to deal with the situation that reflects that delicacy. Even back in Renaissance times bawdy old writer Rabelais penned a tale of Pantagruel trying to find the ideal means of, you’ll pardon me, wiping his ass. He finally settled on the soft feathers to be found on the neck of a goose – still attached to the living goose, by the way. He doesn’t suggest what the goose thought about this, but for Pantagruel it worked.

Down all the years people have made do in many ways, including the time-honored Sear’s catalogue hung up in the outdoor biffy. Travelers from North America to the UK in the old days were often horrified by the quality and harshness of the toilet paper there (it has improved immensely, by the way) and some even took to bringing a few rolls of back-home softness on their travels.

The Continent wasn’t much better in those days. I remember some in Bavaria back many years ago that was literally the consistency of the crepe paper you’d use to decorate the gym for a sock hop.

Over the years, however, it got better and better both sides of the ocean. And that eventually brought us right up to today, and evoked the wrath of the Greenpeace prigs. There target is the Kimberly-Clark people who a few years ago began smearing lanolin or cold cream or something between the sheets for an even smoother and more comfortable ride on the porcelain throne.

It seems that the fancy bumf is environmentally unfriendly and takes thousands of years to break down in the landfills and lays waste forests all over the world for the sake of our bum comfort:

"We have this myth in the U.S. that recycled is just so low quality, it's like cardboard and is impossible to use," said Lindsey Allen, the forestry campaigner of Greenpeace.


Campaigners hope the guide will counter an aggressive marketing push by the big paper product makers in which celebrities talk about the comforts of luxury brands of toilet paper and tissue.

Environmentalists say those specialty brands that put quilting and pockets of air between several layers of paper are especially damaging to the environment.

Luxury brands such as three-ply tissues or tissues infused with hand lotion are now considered part of the fastest-growing market share in a highly competitive industry, according to paper manufacturers such as Kimberly-Clark.

The company’s latest television advertisements show a woman caressing tissue infused with hand lotion.

The New York Times reported a 40 percent rise in sales of luxury brands of toilet paper in 2008, and as the recession deepens, paper companies are anxious to keep those percentages up.

So, what’s our alternative? Go back to unfriendly single-ply coarse stuff with the odd wood-chip in the mix or keep pampering our pretty asses? Will eschewing the multi-ply softness drenched product of a wasteful society make you feel flushed with pride?

I have no answers. I mean, hey I use cloth shopping bags and drive an unthirsty car, I recycle all that can be recycled. Do I now have to feel guilt each time nature calls and I must fret over the fancy soft stuff we have?

I’m of two minds. I live in paper-mill country and these operations are closing down and throwing my fellow citizens out of work. My conscience tells me that bolstering my local economy should take precedence over Greenpeace’s angst about cutting down trees. Trees that were, after all, raised to be cut down and processed. Convince me, GP, that virgin forests are being laid waste to pamper our bottoms and I’ll switch to single ply. This works for me.

Otherwise, leave people to their morning, afternoon, or evening 'meditation' in comfort in these stressful times.




Labels:

15 Comments:

Blogger Vic said...

Trust you, Ian, to get to the bottom of the problem.

I blame it on the bears. You know, the ones you see on TV with their leaf blowers to clean up the mess left "behind" by lesser brands.

And then there's the kids who "always take too much" - a problem that is apparently solved by having them understand the longevity and tenacity of "premium brands".

Now I'd better go, as I feel "flushed" with success at being the first commenter.

2:55 PM  
Blogger Hermes said...

Its not that the trees get cut down, its the proces of making them into paper products. Go to a mill town and have a good whiff. That's all you need to know about the environmental safety of a pulp mill. That smell says it all.
What about a bidet?

4:36 PM  
Blogger Liz Dwyer said...

I saw this story a couple days ago and have been wondering since then why the bidet is so unpopular here. Without one, I'll continue to buy the absolute softest tissue I can find.

5:55 PM  
Blogger beachgirl said...

Please don't take away my Aloe Vera Charmen double rolls. My bum will never survive.
I am a good girl for the rest of it. I recycle all my plastics. I use earth friendly shopping bags for the grocery store. (if I remember them). And if the water was good I wouldn't drink it from a bottle. But hey, until they take all that crap out of the local water supply, I am drinking it distilled from a bottle.

Have an awesome weekend.

6:05 PM  
Blogger Dr. Deb said...

Hmmm... I buy a lot of recycled stuff where I live and it suits us all just fine. And why hasn't the bidet taken off in the states. So strange.

6:46 PM  
Blogger Ian Lidster said...

A number of comments have been made extolling the virtues of the bidet, and I could not agree more. I mean, they've been commonplace in Europe for decades and they serve their purpose in such a sanitary manner. Let's mount a 'Give Us Bidets' campaign.

7:06 PM  
Blogger Voyager said...

Bidets are a great solution. I think my parents are the only people in rural Nova Scotia that have had one installed. In Thailand there was an even cheaper but perfect solution: a hand held spray hose installed beside the toilet, both eastern and western syles. Of course cold water was not a problem there...Brrrr.
V.

9:14 PM  
Blogger meggie said...

Nothing quite like getting down to basics.
I recently watched a TV doco, wherein the subjects were traveller, who were questioned closely, about the 'facilities' available in OS countries.
The left hand in the bowl of water seemed to be the norm.
I am lefthanded... so you can guess how I felt about that solution!!

12:07 AM  
Blogger French Fancy... said...

I've always thought the Japanese had the ideal system with their toilets that have a wash jet that goes up the bum and then another jet with warm air that dries you. If I could get one over here I would.

8:19 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That poor, poor goose!

11:55 AM  
Blogger Lady Fi said...

Ha ha! That's an kick-butting post!

I see that Sheryl Crow has called for people to use a limit of a few squares per visit so as not to waste loo paper.

As you say, that depends on the type of paper you use. We use toilet paper made from recycled paper that hasn't been bleached with chlorine.. i.e. it doesn't damage the environment. In return, I allow myself the luxury of using as much as I want!

6:58 AM  
Blogger Janice Thomson said...

When you live in rural areas with septic tanks you soon learn the soft thick stuff just doesn't make the grade because it constantly plugs everything up and as mentioned doesn't break down fast enough to be siphoned into the field. For country folk Charmin is out of the question.

4:26 PM  
Blogger Jazz said...

trying to find the ideal means of (...) wiping his ass. He finally settled on the soft feathers to be found on the neck of a goose – still attached to the living goose, by the way. He doesn’t suggest what the goose thought about this, but for Pantagruel it worked.

Geese are the most curmudgeonly of birds. In his place I'd've been afraid the goose would bite off my nuts... but I suppose Pantagruel liked to live dangerously.

8:33 AM  
Blogger Jazz said...

RE: the bidet.

I'm not sure Greenpeace would like that solution either - huge waste of water and all.

8:34 AM  
Blogger Warty Mammal said...

You might (or might not) find Rose George's book, "The Big Necessity", and her blog of interest:

http://rosegeorge.com/site/category/blog/

She has an ongoing soliloquy about sanitary matters, among other things discussing the strange logic of combining wastes with drinking water and then trying to separate the two out again.

6:37 PM  

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