I used to be a card-carrying member of Greenpeace. Long before I was the Momster, Greenpeace helped form my activist, power-to-the-people thinking, and I wrote letters and boycotted brands based on the trusted counsel of far more courageous and knowledgeable people than I. That’s when I started thinking about my toilet paper, and when I stopped using Scott brand paper products, because they were one of the largest purchasers of rainforest trees for paper. Then I found out Scott was a Kimberly Clark brand, along with Kleenex, so Kleenex was no longer my tissue. Then I used Marcal, a New Jersey brand that made my choice so much easier. Marcal’s motto is “paper from paper, not trees” and they have been making paper goods from recycled paper since 1950. I always liked Marcal because their tissues and toilet paper—er, bath tissue—didn’t feel like sandpaper like most recycled tissue.

But when we moved from the East coast we found that Marcal wasn’t known around these parts. We suffered through lots of recycled paper choices, but they were all scratchy and unpleasant. Once my sensitive little girl started using tissues and T.P., I opted for conservation and education, and soft instead of environmentally sound. I still didn’t buy Kimberly Clark brands, but I wasn’t careful about the brands I did buy. It was like “don’t ask, don’t tell” for paper products. But now I find that I can we can once again wipe our snot on soft Kleenex brand tissues! Greenpeace’s five year Kleercut Kleenex brand boycott has come to an end, because Kimberly Clark has agreed to source 100% of the wood fiber for all of it’s products from environmentally responsible sources, and will begin getting out of the Boreal Forest, which means they will not be cutting down rainforest trees so it’s great news!

So, to celebrate, in a way, I bought some Scott single ply toilet paper. Georgia and I had a conversation over the new T.P.

“Ugh!” She said, with disgust. “This is the toilet paper Baxter uses. You have to use a LOT to wipe poop.”

“I think it just seems like a lot. I thought we’d try it because I think we will end up using less of it, and now they turned into a company that is working to take care of the earth.” I countered.

“How?”

“They used to cut down rainforest trees and too many trees just to make toilet paper, but now they aren’t going to cut down rainforest trees and they are going to try to save trees instead.”

She thought about this for a minute, “Hmmmm. If we use more paper it means dead trees and dead trees means dead food and a dead planet, and dead food means we’ll soon be dead. So it’s a good thing because those are a lot of bad things!”

I think she was trying to say she’d give it a go.

I don’t think I’ll be buying Scott single ply again, but Kimberly Clark has a lot of other brands we can try. I noticed that Marcal has a tiny space in the paper towel section so I bought some to support them in this market, and will look for their T.P., especially because they don’t use toxic dioxins to bleach their paper. But for now the toilet paper decision doesn’t have to be a guilty tickle in the back of my mind, and I can have some peace in the paper product aisle.

Photo credit: *clairity*