Bottom Priority

Loo roll is essential, and it’s not something that I can really make myself. But go down to your local supermarket and all brands are wrapped in a plastic film. For a long time, I’ve always picked up loo roll that is made from recycled paper – it always seemed a bit daft to chop down some trees to make something that gets used once then flushed away. Better to use something that’s at the end of its useful life one last time before the big flush. So current household purchase is the bumper 9-pack of recycled loo roll from Waitrose at the grand expense of £2.63 (£0.2922222222222222 per roll). One roll has around 240 sheets, so £0.00122 per sheet. Nice summary on the Waitrose website as to where it all comes from.

Made entirely from recycled paper. Our recycled toilet tissues start with recycled magazines, packaging and office waste. The waste paper is sorted and only the best quality materials delivered to a UK mill. Next the paper is washed with water and printed ink, plastic and staples are removed. The cleaned paper pulp is pressed, hot air dried and rolled into 'reels'. Excess water is re-used within the factory. Finally the paper 'logs' are cut into individual toilet rolls, and packed ready for delivery to our stores.

All good, but like all other brands in the aisle, wrapped in an unknown plastic type. So, is there loo roll out there that isn’t wrapped in plastic?

The quest for naked loo roll

Well, no alternatives in the shops but online presents a number of options. So far I’ve been able to find three suppliers that basically involve the purchase of a LOT of bum roll.

“Who gives a crap” is a company that provides plastic free loo roll made from 100% recycled material and, for all the loo roll they sell, 50% of their profits are donated to help build toilets around the world for those who need them. For a bulk order of 48 rolls, where one roll has 400 sheets, this will set you back £36 with free shipping for orders over £20 (so we’re looing at a cost of £0.525 per roll, £0.001875 per sheet). Only snag is that each roll is wrapped in very fetching paper packaging, which frankly is pretty but generates more waste than is necessary – though, hats off to them, it’s not plastic. The other thing niggling in the back of my mind is where does the loo roll come from? Who gives a crap started out an Australian company and their FAQ site tells me that it’s all produced in China and sea freighted over to the UK.

Another couple of alternatives aren’t using recycled paper but virgin bamboo. Cheeky Panda do a bulk order of 48 rolls in a big recycled cardboard box with no plastic packaging for £36 and free shipping. As a Cheeky Panda roll has 200 sheets, that £0.75 per roll, £0.00375 per sheet.

A similar bamboo product which uses recycled sugarcane is loo roll from Greencare. They can send out a box of naked toilet paper, again at that magic number of 48 rolls for £25.20 + £4.44 postage. At 300 sheets per roll that’s £0.6175 per roll and £0.002058333 per sheet (I like precise numbers!).

All these are good, but a big butt coming on (see what I did there – this is a post about loo roll after all!). Where is the loo roll being made? Bamboo or sugar cane isn’t something that is really grown on-mass in the UK or Europe, so it’s going to be something that is manufactured on the other side of the world and shipped over here. I did drop both Cheeky Panda and Greencare an email about this but they didn’t get back to me.

Is it that bad getting loo roll from China?

I’ve fixated a fair bit over the last couple of months about recycling going to China, so I thought I would explore how goods produced in China gets to us and the impacts. From what I can tell, goods get shipped to the UK from three hubs of ports in China:

- Northern China – Qingdao/Tianjin/Xingang

- Central China – Shanghai/Ningbo

- Southern China – Guangzhou/Shenzhen

It will take around a month to freight goods from China via Indonesia, past Australia, a quick hop across the Indian Ocean to whip around the Cape of Good Hope, then head north across the Atlantic Ocean to finally arrive somewhere in the ports of Southern England. Another, more direct, and probably popular route is from Indonesia to head around India, up via the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to then short cut via the Mediterranean to pop up via the Atlantic and up the UK. So, very well-travelled!

Basic shipping routes and ports from China to UK

Assuming that our loo roll options are rapidly getting to us from Shanghai via the Suez Canal, that’s 11,714 nautical miles. I think metrically and as 1 nautical mile is 1.852 km (new fact of the day for you there). So that’s a whopping distance of 21,694 km. There are some carbon footprint stats out there for different shipping techniques, even via Airship (!), which show that shipping 1 tonne of something a distance of 1 km via sea produces 10 to 40 g of CO2.

Transport via lorry is higher producing 60 to 150 g of CO2 per km/tonne, and you need to account for the transport of the goods to your door via lorry from a local port. For example, Southampton to Wallingford is around 100 km, though obviously it’s not a tonne being delivered to your door but what gets shipped over to the UK is makings lots and lots of individual journeys to other people’s door, so over all that tonnage does add up. Ignoring this bit (it’s too complicated for me to try and work out just right now!), a conservative estimate carbon foot print of getting a tonne of loo roll over from China is 21,694 km x 0.040 kg = 868 kg.

How does this shipping compare to a lorry delivering the UK recycled stuff that Waitrose is supplying? There are a lot of recycling paper mills dotted all around the UK, so I’ve assumed a conservative estimate of 250 km to get from say a paper mill in Kent to the Waitrose distribution centre in Milton Keynes, then a journey from there to Wallingford. That’s 250 km x 0.150 kg = 37.5 kg of carbon, which is 4% of the carbon emission of getting the same tonnage from China….

So yep, shipping from China is that bad carbon footprint wise compared to something sourced in the UK.

Getting in touch with Waitrose

Where does this leave us? Let’s revisit the Waitrose loo roll. Key complaint was I didn’t have a clue from the packaging what plastic type it was wrapped in, so it was destined for the big black bin of doom. So on to customer services at Waitrose to ask what the heck it’s made of and could the loo roll be wrapped in paper instead? The reply back was fairly long with corporate environmental fluff but the heart of the matter is that the packaging is made from LDPE and can be recycled at the carrier bag bins at Waitrose – hooray. Mind you, 30% of plastic is recycled abroad and predominantly in Asia, so there is a chance that the plastic material is getting shipped back to Asia, but then it is the same case for any cardboard or paper wrapping for the plastic free loo roll, so you can’t really win!

Direct quote in response to my paper alternative suggestion:

Although paper packaging has been used in the past and might seem like a good alternative, when looking at it from an environmental perspective, it is not as straightforward as you might think.

All packaging, regardless of material type has an environmental impact depending on where in its life cycle you choose to look, for example, the recycling and production of paper has a much larger carbon and water footprint than plastic, as it can take 5 times as much water and energy to produce or recycle paper than plastic, which results in higher carbon emissions.

Is there much mileage in this? Threw a little bit of research at this and found the following paper on carbon emissions for recycled materials, which indicates plastic on average has a higher average carbon footprint to recycle compared to paper.

Water footprint stats unfortunately elude me at this point but I will still keep an eye out. I did ask Waitrose about where they have their stats from and is it possible, they could label the loo roll packaging a bit better to make it clear the plastic is recyclable, which had the following response:

The labeling of our products is under constant review, and new labeling schemes are based on what can recycled as opposed to what is actually is recyclable.

A lot of research has been carried out in the last couple of years on the sustainability of various packaging materials,such as those carried out by the Grantham Centre for Sustainability.

Conclusions can vary depending on what criteria are taken in to account, for example paper and card are thicker and heavier than plastic so it takes more fuel to transport them, and although paper is biodegradable, as it breaks down it releases locked up CO2 into the atmosphere.

We are working with our customers and suppliers to understand which plastics really are unnecessary and trialing new ways of shopping, such as refillable schemes and we will also be introducing more loose product ranges by summer this year.

I need to look into what the Grantham Centre for Sustainability has to offer, as I have in my mind trying to set up some sort of matrix of badness for packaging materials that accounts for carbon footprint, water footprint, impact on ecology both in terms of production and disposal etc. Cos if this post shows up anything, it’s that it’s all really complicated! But will be interested in what Waitrose proposed with their refillable schemes etc.

You don’t actually need loo roll…

Um, this could be a big “ewwwww” moment but its not that bad. Back when the kids were in nappies we found an alterative to disposable baby wipes – Cheeky Wipes, which were cotton wipes you could use, wash, use, wash, use, wash etc. The same company are about to launch “family cloths” which is basically the same principle.

Now there was a bit of a family discussion at breakfast the other day if this was a goer. Eldest thought this was a bit much with a lot of head shaking and youngest followed suit (she generally copies what the eldest does so you sort of have to treat them at the moment as a single unit). Mr Harrison made that face that says “I hear what your suggesting, but not fully committed to it really”. Further explanation was that it felt a little bit like going backwards as after potty training the Cheeky Wipes were all sold on. There was also some chat about more washing and during the winter months trying to get them dry (we don’t have a tumble drier), so it doesn’t look like this one is going to fly in the Harrison household. However, Mr Harrison did suggest that we install a bidet in instead but not 100% sure we have the room.

So, it’s a sad win for the plastic in this post (this blog is about the losses as well as the wins), as I don’t think I can justify plastic free loo roll coming from China when the plastic is recyclable. That and I can’t convince 75% of family Harrison to adopt family wipes… yet.