The cost of soft
June 1st 2010

Luxury paper in the washroom leads to landfill outside it says Jonathan Hooper, Connect Hygiene Products marketing manager. Do customers really know the price to be paid?

Paper hand towels are one of the most hygienic way to dry hands, but other issues concerning their use represent new challenges. The argument about whether or not hand dryers are more environmentally friendly than paper towels is perhaps too complex a piece of science with too many interpretations to be of practical use to busy janitorial companies and end users. You pays your money and you takes your choice as they say.

An issue that does have more resonance is the environmental impact among the various hand towels and the toilet tissues available in the away from home market.

Making product from recycled paper is not about saving trees, it’s about reducing the amount of paper going into landfill. Once there it is a major source of methane, one of the most potent of the greenhouse gases. That’s just fact. Whether or not it then contributes to global warming is another debate. But it does seem like a good idea to reduce the amount of paper going to landfill.

Why isn’t more recycled paper used?

Perhaps the biggest issue is softness. To make soft tissue the use of the long fibres of virgin wood pulp is essential. As I said, it isn’t about trees, they are an increasingly well managed resource and their continued harvesting and renewal is claimed to generate carbon capture.

Felling and transport costs, and manufacturing costs including energy usage, are all part of the reason as to why soft or luxury tissues cost more than those manufactured from recycled products. People pay more for a tissue that is perceived as being more appropriate when addressing the more delicate parts of our anatomy. But is it worth it? And can it be justified in high usage areas? The fabled French bidet is not usually found in away from home situations other than hotels, so while the Japanese and the Indians are bringing in new developments for washing rather than wiping, Europe and North America still concentrate on the latter.

So lots of tissue. But how soft does it have to be? No one is making a case for actual discomfort, but the softest tissue made from recycled paper while lacking the cashmere feel of the newly launched luxury loo roll which contains cashmere fibre, (no really) it hardly equates to actual bodily harm.

Cashmere content is surely a nonsense and it and other super soft tissue in public places means that there is just too high a price to pay in environmental terms. Even the French writer Rabelais’ suggestion that a well plumed goose was an effective way to wipe oneself clean might be preferable. If you’re not a goose that is! On a serious note, we need to communicate the fact that a lot of needless environmental damage is being caused by the pursuit of unnecessary levels of softness that are indulgent to the point of being silly.

Information is important

That’s not to say that choice should be denied, but perhaps we could work harder at explaining the point to end users in the way that we at Connect have developed the Green handprint icon. It stresses the fact that the product is made from 100% recycled paper and that it is much more environmentally friendly than virgin pulp, so if you want to give the planet a helping hand, this is an easy way to do it and at little discernible discomfort.

People nearly always say that they want to be ‘green’. Helping them do it and making them feel good about it with a minimum of effort on their part is a winning scenario. It only leaves the super indulgent and they are unlikely to be convinced by any such arguments.

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