How to Feel Good about Toilet Paper

Normally, toilet paper is not something that the average Joe Consumer thinks about on a daily basis. But I found a way to actually feel good about the humble TP roll:

By buying recycled.

All these years I've bought brands like Procter and Gamble's Charmin for use in the bathroom. But on a whim, I bought recycled toilet paper from Trader Joe's and I actually kinda feel good about myself. Granted, the Charmin TP has a better texture to it, and it may be cheaper (I'm not sure), but at what cost am I harming the environment so I can have a luxury tissue take care of you know what. Scary to think about how many trees are chopped down to produce something that has a useful existence of about 5 seconds.

The advantages of buying recycled toilet paper are many, including:

-Saving trees
-Minimizing or eliminating bleach from the production process, since bleach is a harsh chemical
-Minimizing or eliminating mercury, which is a by-product in some toilet paper production processes
-Giving good reason for people to recycle... since townships often actually make money on recycling, there's an added incentive to recycle more in order to give back to municipalities (well, that's my theory at least)
-And even the packaging on Trader Joe's (and perhaps other brands) is biodegradable in 18 months (or so it says on the plastic)

Once again, we need to stop thinking like we live in a disposable world since what we've been doing has just been dragging us into a dangerous spiral economically, environmentally, and socially. Time to think differently, from our head down to our feet, and other stopovers in between.

I suggest for anybody interested in purchasing recycled toilet paper, to check out this informative NRDC page, which gives an insightful comparison of various brands.

Thanks for your time and happy wiping! (C'mon, I have a picture of a toilet plunger on this blog for Pete's sakes... you didn't actually expect me to leave without some sort of bathroom humor, did you?)