No toilet humour here. When it comes to wiping our behinds, Australians do not joke around. We demand our toilet paper soft, thick, white piles that are silken, smooth and fluffy. And toilet paper manufacturers have responded.

In supermarkets, shelves are filled with toilet paper in brightly coloured packaging, extolling its ultra-soft touch and gentle feel.On television, toilet paper commercials are resorting to metaphors for soft; one current Australian campaign by a major manufacturer has a caveman holding a roll to his face while crying as he discovers toilet paper for the first time.

Not so kind to the environment

But what feels gentle on Australian behinds may not so kind on the environment. According to the consumer advocacy group Choice, only 5 percent of the toilet paper in Australia is made from recycled paper, alarmingly, the remaining 95 percent comes from virgin forests and sustainably managed tree plantations. That’s 270,000 trees a day cut down around the world purely for toilet paper – in other words 200 trees a minute or 98 million a year!

Tissue manufacturers argue that it is the virgin fibres from standing trees that gives their products its expected softness. Customers “demand soft and comfortable,” says one major American tissue manufacturer in the New York Times. “Recycled fiber [sic] cannot do it.” Manufacturers also claim that switching to recycled paper does not necessarily make the process greener.

“Using recycled fibre in toilet tissue does not make it 'environmentally friendly'”, claims manufacturer Kimberly Clark on their website. “Making recycled fibres suitable for tissue involves removing the ink and cleaning the fibres requiring large amounts of chemicals and energy which have their own environmental consequences.” They have also conducted a Life Cycle Assessment of tissue products in which they concluded that there were no significant environmental advantages of using recycled fibre over virgin wood.

Virgin forests are ecologically critical

On the other hand, environmental groups say these virgin forests provide critical support for a diverse ecological system. In America, the world’s biggest market for toilet tissue, the National Resources Defence Council (NRDC) said that paper harvested from the Canadian Boreal forest has resulted in the depletion of population among “caribou, lynx, bear, wolves and scores of songbirds.” Additionally, these old growth forests also plays a critical role in preventing climate change by scrubbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

To address this, manufacturers have switched to pulp from plantations and sustainably managed forests. Kimberly Clark in Australia, for example, has implemented a policy of sourcing wood from mills that are accredited with the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). However, the clearing of biologically rich forests for monoculture tree plantations has only caused more environmental damage. To supplement an increasingly ravenous paper market, fast-growing trees such as eucalyptus and pine are planted to support this.

Nevertheless, not only have the plantations displaced indigenous wildlife and plant life, it has also introduced pesticides, diseases, land erosion and water shortages to the land. A report by the Primary Industries and Resources South Australia (PIRSA) found that the ecological balance in plantations was “much more delicate and outbreaks of insect ‘pests’ frequently occur,” and in Tasmania, the state’s extensive eucalyptus plantations were found to be leaking toxins into the water supply. In Queensland, hoop pine plantations near Gympie have been blamed for an outbreak of a fungus threatening thousands of trees.

It’s a myth: old growth forests make softer toilet paper

According to Aaron Fuller instigator of the “Wipe It Out” campaign, “we will always have a need for timber and timber products, and they are a renewable source when managed well. Why “Wipe It Out” supports the use of recycled toilet paper is that the energy and water required to make toilet paper from timber (managed forests or not) is far greater than using post consumer paper.”

In fact says Aaron “each tonne of toilet paper made from recycled paper versus trees saves 31,000 litres of water. Besides that fact, the issue of chopping the tree down to turn it into toilet paper for its first and final use is to us, insanity. We are not against logging, just logging for the sake to make loo paper.”

He adds, “It is a myth that old growth or renewable forests make for softer toilet paper. Think of a tree. There is nothing soft about it. The issue is how much timber they have to use to get soft paper versus how much recycled paper (office paper etc) [is required]. It is also true that not all recycled toilet paper is great for the environment.”

Aaron contends that “due to the logging industry being so well subsidised by the government, it costs around 1/10th to buy a tonne of timber (trees) for the raw product than it does to buy the same amount of post consumer waste. Imagine, companies paying less than $10 per cubic meter for timber and over $100 for the same volume of pre-loved office paper. It is true that as paper gets re-used, the fibres become less and less [sic]. However, the realities are that it comes down to bottom line (excuse the pun) as a toilet paper manufacturer. Increase the price of timber; decrease the price of recycled paper. Hey, here is a thought: subsidise the recycling industry, not the logging!!”

What can you do?

Advice from “Wipe it Out” on how to choose environmentally friendly loo rolls:

• Read the fine print and look out for product manufactured from 100 percent recycled materials wherever possible. Keep an eye out, too, for brands endorsed by a known environmental group.
• Purchase toilet paper in bulk and choose the brand with the most squares per roll to save packaging waste, and when you're finished remember to recycle the cardboard roll. Toilet paper pulled from the top instead of under saves a few extra squares each use.
• Recent advertising campaigns may be littered with adorable puppies, cute kids and catchy jingles, but the environmental credentials of recycled toilet paper are gaining ground. And that is - again, pardon the pun - a welcome relief.

Join the “Wipe It Out” campaign:

Wipe It Out is an independent, “anti-boycott” campaign attempting to win the hearts and minds of consumers and major retailers like Coles, Woolworths and IGA to stock Aussie supermarket shelves exclusively with recycled toilet paper.

Wipe It Out is a unique campaign that focuses on collaboration, rather than using aggressive tactics against retailers that would divide or alienate.

Instead, Wipe It Out wants Australia to stop turning its precious virgin rainforests or plantation forests into toilet paper for our backsides. They’d rather see this great country wipe it out altogether and use recycled paper. Let's not be so rude as to chop down a tree and turn it in to toilet paper for its first and final use.

This video was created to support the Australian campaign to replace virgin fibre toilet paper with recycled paper, every year we chop down 98 MILLION trees and wipe our bums with them ...

To show your support and join, go to www.wipeitout.com.au

Also see the recycling section of our directory.