Eco-Friendly Toilet Paper: Think Before You Wipe

When you think of saving the environment, you probably think of cars, gas, plastic bags, eating locally, and making sure you separate your cans from your corrugated cardboard. But what about wiping your ass? According to National Geographic, toilet paper wipes out 27,000 trees per day worldwide. That’s a lot of wood-splitting.

Though we don’t recommend you ditch downstairs hygiene altogether, we do think it’s worth spending the extra pennies – or even dollars – to buy forest-friendly TP. According to the National Resources Defense Council, if every household in the U.S. replaced just one roll of virgin fiber toilet paper (500 sheets) with a 100% recycled one, we could save 423,900 trees. Here are just 10 brands that make the NRDC’s list of top recommended toilet papers:

365 Everyday Value Whole Foods (100% recycled, more than 80% post-consumer)

Marcal (100% recycled, 40% post-consumer)

Marcal Small Steps (100% recycled, 30% post-consumer)

Green Forest (100% recycled, 90% post-consumer)

Earth First (100% recycled, less than 80% post-consumer)

Seventh Generation (100% recycled, 80% post-consumer)

Trader Joe’s (100% recycled, 80% post-consumer)

Nature’s Choice (100% recycled, less than 40% post-consumer)

Sofpac (100% recycled, 40% post-consumer)

Natural Value (100% recycled, 80% post-consumer)

photo: Thinkstock