Reducing Bathroom Waste…?
I have noticed that the majority of the trash that I have is coming from the bathroom. I am thankfully not talking about toilet paper or any type of waste connected with a toilet. Although I did some research on past alternatives to toilet paper and they are not pretty. The methods described in that article (leaves, stones, and mussel shells) are of course more environmentally friendly than toilet paper itself because toilet paper has to be manufactured from a natural resource (trees). However, I also did some research on how wastewater and septic systems work and the paper that is flushed down the toilet essentially dissolves.
On that note, my bathroom trash bag is full of other things like tissues and q-tips. I guess after four months only having one bag of tissues is not so bad. But how do we elimite the need for tissues? Go back in the day, when people used to use snot rag. The thought of it makes me cringe a little. But you can’t knock it until you try it so, from this day on, I will no longer use tissues. I am going to buy myself a snot rag.
More on tissues…Kimberly-Clark is cutting down ancient forests to create their tissue products. There has been a lot of controversy over what Kimberly-Clark is doing and GREENPEACE has acknowledged it and is trying to take action as well. Read up! The website also tells you what tissue brands in the US and Canada are “Ancient Forest Friendly”.
I used a handkerchief for a summer in India, and I had terrible allergies. It wasn’t so bad!
Really? Yeah, I think its just a mental thing. I was sick about two weeks ago and I used a ridiculous amount of tissues! Almost half of that bag. So, a change is definitely in order.
Is there a reason you couldn’t flush the tissues just like you do toilet paper? Or maybe use toilet paper to blow/wipe your nose?
Katie, that is a good question that I was thinking of myself. Technically, I think you could flush all the tissues you use down the toilet. Septic tanks are designed for certain things to be flushed down (toilet paper, water, and ehm other things…). However, I am not sure what the maximum amount of paper a septic system could handle. If it accumulates too much paper, they will dissolve at a much slower rate and could clog the pipes, break the flow of the tank, etc. So a tissue here or there would probably not cause any damage. But, if you made the toilet the new place for all tissues, perhaps problems would arise. Too much of anything isn’t good