Sustainable Brew, Recycled Toilet Paper & Green Cars

Listen, laugh & learn with the Green Divas (and Green Dude Scott) anytime - Podcast here!

Happy St. Paddy’s Day! We celebrated in the studio by talking about green beer . . . not the color silly, sustainably brewed beer! We had fun with our Sleeping Naked is Green segment talking about good reasons to use recycled toilet paper and paper towels. Our first Getting Local with the Green Divas segment with the Daily Record’s Grassroots editor Meghan Van Dyke was a nice discussion about local food systems.

Our feature interview was with our favorite green car dude, John Voelcker, Sr. editor of GreenCarReports.com. He answered a listener’s question about what to buy for best value and efficiency if you had $15k to spend on a car. Also, talked about another question regarding RVs. Always discussion on latest in electric vehicles and biodiesel.

WHY SHOULD WE CARE

Please join us in being part of the solution! Visit our Why Should We Care Campaign page and please donate (and get some awesome goodies when you do)!

Sleeping Naked is Green segment: Buy only recycled toilet paper & paper towels

The Environmental Impact of Paper Towels

Generally one-time use
Aside from trees being used, most brands use bleach in the process, which releases dioxins into the environment – dioxins are bad, causing birth defects and cancer

The Environmental Impact of Toilet Paper

In a New York Times article about toilet paper and its impact on the environment, RISI an independent market analysis firm in Bedford, Mass., the pulp from one eucalyptus tree, a commonly used tree, produces as many as 1,000 rolls of toilet tissue. Americans use an average of 23.6 rolls per capita a year.
Our obsession w/ fluffy soft TP is costing our forests: According the same New York Times article,

. . . fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.

Good Ideas

Suck it up and use recycled TP!
Get recycled paper towels – use less natural resources and energy to produce
Use washable dish towels instead of paper towels
Paper Towel v. electric hand dryer – use the hand dryer. it actually uses more energy to produce the towel(s) and people tend to use several at a time
- Here’s one detailed analysis
- Get some People Towels – Personal re-usable hand towels. made from 100% organic, fair trade cotton

Listen this Sleeping Naked is Green 5-minute segment.

SUSTAINABLE BREW . . . the real green beer!

Did you know that Americans drink 50 billion pints of beer a year. If all that beer came out of cans and you set one can on top of the other, it would reach the moon, 20 times. But more importantly, most of the 6 million pounds of grain used for beer making is laden with pesticides, not to mention how much water it takes to brew beer. Find out a LOT more about sustainable brew from GD Lisa’s recent post on Green Beer.

GETTIN LOCAL WITH THE GREEN DIVAS: Wherever You Are!

Listen to our first of this series about local, sustainable community – this week’s discussion was about local food systems.

As always, please visit our website for LOTS of relevant links & resources from the show - Green Divas website.

Hope you’ll listen to this broadcast!

Listen to the show here!

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Dave C.

2:13PM PDT on Nov 1, 2012

thanks...all we use at home is recycled paper...toilet, tissue, paper towels (rarely actually buy, but reusable cloth mostly) and printer paper....I think we even found lined paper this year for school.....

November 1
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Steven H.

1:40PM PDT on Nov 1, 2012

One brand of green toilet paper that I have been using is Bum Boosa. Instead of being made from trees, it is made from bamboo, which is a lot more sustainable. The toilet paper is made from 100% bamboo processed with the mechanical pulping method. It is tree-free, biodegradable, BPA-free, elemental chlorine-free and it breaks down quickly. Even the packaging is made from recycled paper. I find that it is really soft and the paper is thick, so it doesn’t tear easily. The best part is that they plant a tree for every 4 rolls sold.

Sheri P.

5:16AM PDT on Jun 22, 2012

i use recycled tp and paper towels. the sucky thing is that it's more expensive than the fluffy stuff...

June 22
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Sarah M.

1:15PM PDT on Apr 1, 2012

thanks

April 1
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Annemarie W.

3:50PM PDT on Mar 29, 2012

March 29
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Heidi A.

10:04PM PDT on Mar 27, 2012

Useful information, although I cannot imagine leaving lights on when not in use, except the porch light.

March 27
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Duane B.

12:30PM PDT on Mar 21, 2012

The phrase "recycled toilet paper" was making me somewhat uncomfortable for a bit! ;-)

March 21
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Sonny H.

6:49AM PDT on Mar 21, 2012

Use of bidet cuts the use of toilet paper.

Marie W.

11:59PM PDT on Mar 20, 2012

Paper towels can be composted. Doesn't one have to wash real towels- water, energy used?

March 20
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Nicole G.

3:14PM PDT on Mar 20, 2012

Good to see that "recycled toilet paper" actually means toilet paper made from recycled materials. I was wondering where you would keep the other version between uses. EEEWWWWW!!!!