Wednesday 20 January 2010

What a load of bog roll!



With regards to Going Paperless I decided to monitor how much toilet roll I used. Crunchy Chicken reckons that the average american uses 8.9 sheets on average per visit to the throne room, adding up to a total of 57 sheets per day. Wowzers!

Since monitoring I have found that it varies, or can vary greatly, day to day, even (hopefully this won't be TMI) if there are similar jobs to be done on the throne each day. However, either Americans use single ply loo roll, or they do more poos or something because my daily average is 13.25 sheets.

This does admittedly add up to 4836.25 sheets in a year, which with rolls of 200ish sheets is 24 toilet rolls a year. Which actually is 2 per month, which I would have thought would be more than I used, but there you go.

Of course this doesn't take into account blowing your nose and the like, but I do try to use a hanky. I do that partly just because I prefer the feel of real cotton on my face, and not toilet paper, but now I am actively trying to reduce paper wastage I shall make sure I use that.
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2 comments:

  1. Surviving and thriving on pennies21 January 2010 at 04:03

    I just stumbled upon her challenge about 2 weeks ago and dove in head first for #1. I have 4 daughters so TP goes super fast around here. I have found that my girls will use a huge amount even just for potty. Since ive switched to fabric squares, they only use one square. One cotton square equals about 2 of 3 TP squares.

    I feel horrible that im just now doing this challenge. My family alone used WAY too much TP. Were green in just about every other way and it just never dawned on me. Urrr.

    Now I feel good about our paper usage. I feel good that were not cutting down a tree each day just to throw down the toilet. Not only is this an amazing green choice but it saves a ton of money.

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  2. louisa @ Recycle This21 January 2010 at 14:54

    Hi,

    Found your blog through your delurking on Crunchy Chicken - nice to find someone else in the UK for a change :)

    I'm going to switch to cloth wipes for wee in the spring - indoor drying space is limited at the moment and it seems counter-productive to have to heat the house more/use a dryer somewhere to dry the cloths...

    I'm also going to get back to figuring out an alternative to cotton wool for cleanser/moisturiser - I tried making some individual reusable pads out of terry towelling (a reusable nappy, specifically) but they were a pain to get clean & dry too (mostly because I couldn't be bothered pegging them out individually on the line - because who has the time to do that?)

    I asked about cutting down on bathroom disposables on my blog a few months ago - some people had some great suggestions for cutting back:

    http://www.recyclethis.co.uk/20091001/how-can-i-reduce-my-use-of-disposable-bathroom-supplies

    -louisa :)

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