Archive for toilet paper
Waste Paper? Meet your destiny….”White Goat”
Posted by: | CommentsThis has to be seen to be believed and fortunately I have a video to include so that you know it’s not just a fanciful idea. I used to work at an
office where over 600 employees occupied 3 buildings on a corporate campus, regrettably (and as recently as 2006) it was an environment that created an obscene amount of waste paper. We used to have training classes with 60 page staff manuals on paper, I’d attend meetings where in addition to the powerpoint presentation 15 or 20 of us might be watching we would each be handed a twenty page ‘deck’ so we could follow through the presentation from paper on our laps simultaneously! Sadly there were a high number of employees who were very ‘old school’ and emails containing policy or updates just didn’t exist to them unless the clicked their print button, hiked over to the printer and grabbed a paper copy to hide within a draw at their desk. It’s not real unless I can touch it seemed to the mentality.
Within the office they gradually moved to a situation where every 50 feet or so a giant blue paper recycling bin for paper would stand sentinel hoping that a small percentage of the forests destroyed in the name of profit might find their way back to paper mill for reproduction. To be fair some people even asked what these five foot tall plastic receptacles were for, as the months rolled on some people even started adding paper into them. Unfortunately just as many people filled their desk side trash cans on a daily basis with scraps and memos that never needed to be printed in the first place.
I won’t name the company for fear of causing outrage, let’s just say it’s a large and well known company who really should have enforced stricter recycling policy. By the time I left the company, when used to worked later in the evening I would see the cleaning crew come in and empty those recycling bins and would be pleased to see that ‘participation’ rates were beginning to improve. I wish that this product existed 5 years ago as I would have written to our executive board insisting it was considered for our office as well as the dozens of other equally large facilities throughout the world. It’s called White Goat and is named very appropriately.
In short it is a paper shredder designed specifically for large offices that create a significant amount of waste paper. That with water will pulp all waste paper and remarkably turn it into toilet paper. All of this from the same unit! It only takes 40 sheets of A4 paper to make one roll of toilet paper. The manufacturer estimates that ‘running costs’ will equate to about $0.10 per roll of paper. I believe that the company are only accepting pre-orders presently as the product was only recently unveiled at a Japanese ‘eco-trade’ fair late last year.
Watch out for staples!!!
Tags: Eco Friendly, eco ideas, eco inventions, eco products, eco-friendly products, paper recycling, planet forward, recycled toilet paper, scrap paper, shredded paper into toilet paper, sustainable product, toilet paper, white goatGreener Lifestyles And The Great Toilet Paper Debate
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What is the newest anathema among those who live greener lifestyles? It is toilet paper. Yes, toilet paper is the cause of a lot fervor and debate of late. There are two arguments surrounding toilet paper, one is those super soft premium rolls; because they are made by chopping down and grinding up trees. Critics of these premium toilet papers want you to live greener lifestyles by using toilet paper that is made from recycled paper products like the Europeans do. According to a recent article in the Washington Post “big toilet-paper makers say that they’ve taken steps to become more Earth-friendly but that their customers still want the soft stuff, so they’re still selling it.” This seems incongruent with the current eco-friendly climate; people are trying very hard to live greener lifestyles but it would seem their bums are off limits. So why can’t North American’s make the same simple changes that Europeans have? Is it because we are unwilling to purchase anything that does not make us happy and, more importantly, feel good in a very sensitive region?
A question raised in an article in the Post asked “at what price is softness?” said Tim Spring, chief executive of Marcal Manufacturing; a New Jersey paper maker that is trying to persuade customers to try 100 percent recycled paper. “Should I contribute to clear-cutting and deforestation because the big [marketing] machine has told me that softness is important?” The article also explained the difference between the recycled and virgin (from freshly cut trees) fibers. “The reason for this fight lies in toilet-paper engineering. Each sheet is a web of wood fibers, and fibers from old trees are longer, which produces a smoother and more supple web. Fibers made from recycled paper — in this case magazines, newspapers or computer printouts — are shorter. The web often is rougher.”
Rougher recycled toilet paper is popularly used in restaurants, offices, hospitals etc… and accounts for 75% of that market; where as recycled paper accounts for only 5% of the home market.

The second debate is about how much of the soft stuff we use. If everyone used less of the soft toilet paper it would Read More→
Tags: earth-friendly toilet paper, Eco Friendly, greener lifestyle, greener lifestyles, planet forward, recycled paper, recycled toilet paper, reusable bag, reusable Water bottle, stainless steel bottles, sustainable bag, sustainable bottle, toilet paper, virgin paper

