Waste: Family cloth vs TP

[michelleklu]

So my DH has agreed on cloth paper towels and toilet paper although he thinks that manufactured TP and family cloth waste the same amount of resources. This isn't true right?! I read that the making of disposable diapers are more significant than the laundry load of cloth diapers. He says that since toilet paper disintegrates it doesn't make an impact on the environment. Uh. . .?!

Please explain this to me so I can reiterate it to my DH.

[VeganCupcake]

I haven't done a detailed analysis, but it seems pretty clear to me that family cloth uses fewer resources.

TP definitely takes a lot of resources to make. If your TP is made with a high percentage of recycled content, that's good. This was an interesting website.

In sewage treatment in my area, whatever is left of TP as it makes its way to the treatment plant (and it doesn't simply disappear in water) gets chewed up in a shredder with all kinds of other yummy things and then spread out to dry. Then I think it's sold as "biosolids". To whom? I don't know.

If you use recycled materials for your family cloth (cut up receiving blankets, towels, tee shirts), the resources required are pretty tiny. Also, I wash our family cloth with diapers, or before we had a baby, I washed it with underwear, so it wasn't using any extra resources. Family cloth doesn't take up much space in the washing machine.

[laohaire]

Some points:

- TP and other paper products are made with bleach and other terrible chemicals. And they don't just "disappear."
- Sure, probably it takes more resources to manufacture a single piece of family cloth versus a swath of paper TP (assuming you don't just use recycled materials, like old shirts or whatever - in which case there isn't even remotely an argument about resource usage to manufacture; there would be effectively NONE since the item outlived its original use). But reusing a stash of, say, 50 pieces of family cloth over and over is significantly less resource intensive than going through a roll of TP every couple of days.
- In addition to manufacturing resources (and don't forget the packaging which usually includes plastic wrap) there's the transport of the product. Every roll you buy at the store used petroleum to get there.
- Laundry does use resources but I just can't wrap my head around an extra load of laundry a week (especially on an HE washer, with homemade laundry soap) using more resources than the manufacturing, packaging and shipping of the TP. I don't have hard facts for you, it's just common sense.
- Yes, paper TP will biodegrade, but will leave the chemicals (bleach, etc.) behind. Cotton cloth will also biodegrade, so we're equal here - this isn't an argument FOR TP. The chemicals left behind by the cotton cloth varies depending on what you use, but certainly the small pile of cloth will leave less chemicals behind than the mountain of TP you would use instead.