Recycled Content Paper Towels

Americans the most paper porportionately in the world. Our habits of wiping up messy spills with common brands of disposable paper towels involve products that are made from trees harvested unsustainably in old growth forests. Another issue is the fact that they are whitened with chlorine bleach, which lets out dioxins into the environment; a known carcinogen. To help ease your consumption habits, try smarter shopping habits when getting paper towels.

First, examine the product for recycled content. Whatever brand you choose, make sure you verify what percentage of post-consumer fiber the product contains. PCW or Post-consumer waste is preferred to pre-consumer because it means that recycling programs have been successful in their goals and can help to support community efforts. PCW comes from what we consumers put into recycling. Labels claiming that they are recycled without a PCW percentage are likely made with only a fraction of post-consumer waste. This is typically as little as 10%. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) provides a very useful Paper Towel Guide. It has good data on different brands of paper towel, covering three important points: the bleaching process, the percent recycled and the percent of paper towel made from post-consumer waste. There are a few brands listed as ones you should completely avoid, so try to avoid these.

Next, avoid products that have been bleached. Check to see how the paper towel has been whitened, being careful to avoid products whitened with chlorine bleach. Look for processed chlorine-free (PCF) products, which mean no toxic chemicals will end up in our water supplies. Elemental chlorine free (ECF) really just means that chlorine alone was not the bleaching agent. This is vague enough where they can be as bad as conventional brands.

You can also avoid chlorine altogether by choosing naturally colored paper products instead. It is likely to indicate the fibers have not been whitened at all. You can also just not use paper by using scrap cloths made from old, recycled clothing. This method reuses something that otherwise would have ended up as waste. This also helps us avoid cutting trees unnecessarily.

EnviroCitizen.org knows that changing the way that we consume paper products and changing the papers products that we choose to consume can have a big effect on the mass harvesting of forests as well as the long-term effects such actions will inevitably have on the environment. Make a change today.