The Issue is the Tissue

Clayoquot Old Growth Forest    Photo: JSR

"Forests are too vital to flush away."
"None of their flagship at-home brands [Big Tissue manufacturers] contain recycled materials or alternative fibres, and each company misses other key commitments necessary to ensure their products do not come at the expense of the boreal forest."
Report: The Issue With Tissue

"The Canadian boreal forest is the largest intact forest in the world, holding immense value for Indigenous Peoples, species and the climate. It is home to over 600 Indigenous communities whose cultures have remained inextricably linked to the forest for millennia, and is habitat for iconic species like the boreal caribou, Canada lynx and American marten. In addition, the forest is critical in the fight against climate change, storing the carbon equivalent of nearly twice the world's recoverable oil reserves in its soil."
Natural Resources Defense Council, Eco Watch

  Marriott Basin   Photo: JSR

Canada's boreal forests are coming under threat as giant pulp and paper producers based in the United States, like Procter & Gamble, Georgia-Pacific and Kimberly Clark with their popular brands of toilet tissue their public relations machinery touts as 'soft' and 'strong' captivate the market. Brands like Charmin, Cottonelle, Brawny, Bounty, Kleenex, Angel Soft, Quilted Northern and Viva, familiar to anyone who shops for 'quality' products knows well.

Toilet tissue is regarded as a staple product everywhere and anywhere. Tissues produced from recyclable paper simply doesn't have the right luxury cachet. They do attract the environment-conscious hoping to be able to make a bit of a difference in personal responsibility to the environment by choosing brands that advertise their recycled products, but the finished product lacks the soft touch that consumers now demand.

We've come a long way since vegetable waste, lettuce leaves, corncob foliage, and pages torn out of mail-order catalogues were routinely used in outhouses. We're now accustomed to using the softest, gentlest tissues available in our bathrooms and won't hear of any products that fail to live up to those demanding standards. On the other hand, there are astonishing numbers involved in the use of such products.

The U.S. has a population of over 350-million people. Amazingly the use of toilet tissue by Americans is rated as close to three rolls weekly per person. Let that sink in. That kind of usage reflects nothing short of egregious waste, and a type of abuse of a natural resource, but a boon to the bottom line of the producers of the product where the industry can boast it receives $31-billion in revenues on an annual basis.

"We know that virgin fibre in tissue products is significantly preferred by consumers, and 'does the job' much more efficiently than recycled or non-wood products", states Damon Jones, vice-president, global communications at Procter & Gamble. So, in essence, the company is blameless where the waste and the rapacity of old growth forests for their pulp wood is concerned; they are simply filling a market demand in their niche.

Photo: JSR

Where recycled paper is used, he points out, is in the packaging and the inner cores; while, he stresses its wood fibre used in the manufacture of the tissue itself to consumers' preferred specifications, is sourced from responsibly-managed forests. Georgia-Pacific takes pains to point out that consumers look for softness and absorbency and those virtues can only be achieved with the use of virgin pulp. A spokeswoman added that the company she represents "takes steps to ensure that we are responsibly sourcing wood and wood fibre for our pulp, paper and wood products operations".

What has led Natural Resources Defense Council and Stand.earth, international non-profit environmental organizations which worked in tandem to produce the study to criticize manufacturers of tissue is the very issue of the monopolistic use of virgin fibre pulp, which is accessed for the most part from old boreal forests in Canada. Where their marketing campaigns have convinced consumers to use those very products which can only be produced from softwood (hardwoods are deciduous trees, softwoods are conifers).



On the other hand, if we're speaking responsibility, conservation and inattention, forestry sweeps culling old growth and specific natural resources irresponsibly is first and foremost the responsibility of the governments where forest sustainability is threatened, and in this instance it is the provincial and federal governments of Canada itself. Where stewardship of natural resources resides primarily and whose decision-making in agreeing to have its immense boreal forest system reduced should be first and foremost, in question....