It's a Disposable Life - The Sad Story of Household Paper Products

[Dee & Frank Hughes]

Ancient and endangered forests are being destroyed to make toilet paper, paper napkins and towels and other throw aways. In Canada alone 500,000 acres of boreal forest are felled annually for this. Not only is this forest habitat to many species of birds and animals; it also represents the worlds largest repository of carbon dioxide. In other words it's critical to the Earths natural defense against global warming.
Now you might be tempted to say, "surely these throw away products are made from recycled paper." Unfortunately that's not the case. According to a recent article in the New York Times, only paper from standing trees can make that extra soft, super absorbant, ultra plush paper that Americans crave. According to James Malone of Georgia Pacific customers "demand soft and comfortable,,,recycled fiber cannot do it."
Maybe it's time for a change. And this is a change that's not only easy, it will probably save you money. Think about the disposable paper you buy and eliminate some by changing to reused clothing made into dust and clean up rags. According to the National Resources Defense Council if every household in America eliminated just one roll of throw away paper towels we would save 544,000 trees. Whatever you do, and feel free to add your tips here, we should all decide to only buy paper products made from 100% recycled paper and with the highest percentage of post consumer fiber possible. I've attached a buyers guide published by NRDC to help you here.
Life is about choices. You'll probably have to make one the next time you go to the market.

[Jim Stegall]

Something about the NRDC's figures don't seem right. I went to the NRDC's website to see if they showed the figures they used (number of households, average size of trees used in commercial paper production, etc.) to arrive at their conclusion, but they did not.

Last I knew, the population of the United States was a little over 300 million. If we figure about 2.5 persons per household that gives us 120 million households, which sounds about right. If 120 million rolls of paper towels equals 544,000 trees, that means that every tree harvested yields only 220 rolls of paper towels.

Now, a roll of paper towels weighs only a fraction of a pound, including the hard paper tube it's wound on. I'm sure I could easily lift a bundle of 220 rolls of paper towels, over my head. On the other hand I doubt that there are too many trees that are commercially viable to harvest that I could lift at all, let alone over my head. I don't know exactly how trees are turned into paper towels, but if the NRDC's figures are correct it must be an extremely wasteful procedure, with hundreds (if not thousands) of pounds of matter disappearing completely.

I wish I knew how many households the NRDC was counting, or how they define the term, as that would affect the calculations considerably. Still, it's hard to see how their claim adds up. Can anyone explain it more clearly?

[Dee & Frank Hughes]

Where's a scientist when we need one? I'm still researching but a clue may be in the process. Paper is made from wood pulp. Trees are limbed and debarked first, then chipped. The chips are then boiled down a pulp. Again, not a scientist but I assume the point is to remove all the water content from the pulp.
Now I'm not sure if I could, but my guess is that a tree with no bark, limbs or water content would be easier to lift.