Tip of the Week

Get Tough on Tissues

Here's a press release that shows the power of the green consumer: ASPEN SKI COMPANY KICKS KLEENEX OFF MOUNTAINS. And it's all true. The Aspen Skiing Company, host to the World Cup ski circuit, notified paper giant Kimberly-Clark that it has removed the company's tissue products from all Aspen ski mountains, hotels, and restaurants. The decision was made in response to the paper company's refusal to end pulp purchases from destructive logging operations in Canada's Boreal Forest.

The skiing company's tough stance on tissues is nothing to sneeze at. According to the Seventh Generation web site, if every household in the U.S. replaced just one box of 85 sheet virgin fiber facial tissues with 100% recycled ones (meaning 20% min. post-consumer, 80% pre-consumer), we could save:
* 87,700 trees
* 226,500 cubic feet of landfill space, equal to 330 full garbage trucks
* 31 million gallons of water, a year's supply for 240 families of four
* and avoid 5,300 pounds of pollution!

If you're shopping for tissues, or other bathroom or kitchen paper goods (paper towels, napkins, or toilet paper), the Green Guide suggests eschewing any virgin pulp in favor of home use paper products with the highest "post consumer waste" (PCW)content you can find. It's also good to look for products labeled "Processed Chlorine Free" (PCF) which means that no additional chlorine or chlorine derivatives have been used to bleach the final recycled product. For shopping suggestions, the Green Guide provides a list of products that are high in PCW content and PCF-bleached.

© The Green Guide, 2008

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