Green Shopping: Recycled Paper Towel, Toilet Paper, Napkins...

The National Resources Defence Council (NRDC) website has some general tips on how you can help save forests by choosing paper products (paper towel, toilet paper, napkins and tissues), which you can find below. The website then has charts which list brand named paper products and which are the best and worse choices for the environment. I can't seem to add the charts without everything getting scrambled, so you'll need to have a look yourself:

http://www.nrdc.org/land/forests/gtissue.asp#facial   (best & worst brand name charts)

1.   Buy paper products with recycled content-especially post-consumer fibers.
Look for products that have a high recycled content, including high post-consumer content. Post-consumer fibers are recovered from paper that was previously used by consumers and would otherwise have been dumped into a landfill or an incinerator.

2.   Buy paper products made with clean, safe processes.
Paper products are bleached to make them whiter and brighter, but chlorine used in many bleaching processes contributes to the formation of harmful chemicals that wind up in our air and water and are highly toxic to people and fish. Look for products labeled totally chlorine-free (TCF) or processed chlorine-free (PCF). In some cases, elemental chlorine-free (ECF) may be acceptable.

3.  Tell tissue manufacturers to stop using virgin wood for throwaway products.
If a brand you buy for your home doesn't have any recycled content, contact the manufacturer (click here to send a message to paper giant Kimberly-Clark). Tell the company to use more recycled fibers, to avoid sourcing from ecologically valuable forests such as those in the Cumberland Plateau and Canadian boreal, and to ensure any virgin fibers used are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Saving forests also helps reduce global warming pollution.

P.S. If you live in Canada, go to the Greenpeace.ca website, where they have similar information on best and worst choices of paper products for Canadians: http://tissue.greenpeace.ca/

I realize there are even greener alternatives than post-consumer recycled paper products, such as cloth napkins or towels, but most people are not keen to switch to cloth “hankies” from tissue, and I don't even want to think about whether there are alternatives to toilet paper.