In general, toilet paper is some kind of paper. The ingredients for toilet paper are the same as other kinds of paper only difference is in manufacturing process. Toilet paper is usually made from paper called “virgin paper”. Virgin paper does not contain any recycled material, it is paper manufactured from new pulp. Wood pulp is the main component for toilet paper.
Some companies avoid use of "virgin" paper to save the world's forests. The more virgin paper is used the more trees are cut down. Producing a ton of virgin paper requires 20 trees. One of the most commonly used type of tree can produce around 1,000 rolls of toilet paper. Americans use 27% of the wood harvested worldwide.
One simple way to resolve this problem is to use recycled paper only. Many people don't like to use recycled paper, but recycled paper’s quality has increased greatly and today it is very similar to virgin paper.
According to some studies, if every household replaced just one roll of virgin toilet paper with 100 percent recycled toilet paper, we will save almost half a million trees. Toilet paper made of recycled ingredients could help you save money as well as the planet.
Buying recycled content toilet paper takes us a big step toward conserving our natural resources.
Buying toilet paper made from recycled materials is great. However recycled paper needs to be deinked in complicated chemical process before it is pulped and processed. That may involve chlorine to bleach the paper. Chemicals can react with paper fibers to create the carcinogenic chemical dioxin and other toxins. When using virgin-fiber based toilet tissue the same chlorine dioxide may be prevalent too.
It's important to save the trees, but it's also extremely important that we get away from chlorine based chemicals. Choosing recycled chlorine-free paper is maybe right option, but you have to decide which toilet paper is the best for you.