Why using recycled toilet paper is dangerous to your health, and three green, nontoxic and sustainable alternatives to consider instead.
Like many of you good little girls and boys out there trying to be responsible citizens of Planet Earth, I bought recycled toilet paper in an attempt to be more environmentally conscious.
Alas.
This method of going green in the bathroom is not such a good idea after all. In fact, it is a most decidedly BAD idea.
Green does not necessarily mean healthy!
Recycled Toilet Paper is Toxic
Two studies published in Environmental Science & Technology have shown that BPA and cousin chemical BPS used in “BPA free products” but also highly estrogenic in nature, are much more pervasive in our common, everyday products than we could have imagined.
Yeah, that BPA free stuff is no better and will mess up your hormones just as much. But then, you sensed that was the case already didn’t you? I know I did.
The term “safe chemical” is kind of an oxymoron. If a product contains chemicals, just assume they are toxic unless proven otherwise.
How does all this relate to recycled toilet paper?
Hormone Disruptors in Recycled Paper
These two studies involved examination of hundreds of samples of paper from everyday items such as toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, newspapers, magazines, tickets, and even business cards.
Most of the paper samples tested contained the hormone disruptors BPA, BPS or BOTH.
How and why the paper was so contaminated is a question that requires further study to ascertain.
But for now, the key is to avoid thermal paper as much as possible. This stuff is the worst offender perhaps because it is often recycled and may somehow become contaminated during the reclamation process.
The ink itself may also be a culprit in the overall toxicity of recycled toilet paper.
In fact, it is best to avoid touching all recycled paper period! Sister chemicals BPA and BPS absorb very readily through the skin.
You don’t have to eat it to have them enter your bloodstream.
If your job involves handling thermal paper receipts, for example, best to wear gloves. And, if you can turn down receipts and instead rely on an online itemization of your expenditures, that would be a good step as well.
TP Used for Thin Skin Near Reproductive Areas
As for your backside, opt for toilet paper made from virgin pulp or better still, bamboo toilet paper.
This is an especially important area to protect from BPA and BPS as the skin in these areas is thin and delicate.
This means that the chemicals can more easily enter the bloodstream with very close proximity to the reproductive organs.
Green AND Safe Options to Toilet Paper
If you don’t want to change habits right now, at least switch to bamboo toilet paper (I suggest this brand). It is nontoxic and sustainably produced.
If you really want to go green with your toilet habits, skip the toilet paper entirely and invest in a bidet attachment for your toilet. They are very reasonably priced and easy to install.
If this European method of saving trees doesn’t work for you, your other option is to go the reusable TP cloths route.
Any of these approaches makes for a sanitary, nontoxic and sustainable bathroom experience.
Reference
(1) Bottom Line Publications, Toxic Toilet Paper? You Got It
There are some unbleached brands you can find.
What about Seventh Generation’s recycled facial tissue?
Frankly, this is blog post is an example of poor journalism. The author didn’t read any of the study that was referenced and merely repeated what some other organization posted without any citations from the study.
For the record, the study paper we’re talking about here is this one: “Widespread Occurrence of Bisphenol A in Paper and Paper Products: Implications for Human Exposure.” (Found here: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es202507f?prevSearch=Kurunthachalam%2BKannan&searchHistoryKey= ) I don’t have the money to purchase the article to read, but I can read the abstract for free. The second to last sentence in the abstract says the following:
“The daily intake of BPA (calculated from median concentrations) through dermal absorption from handling of papers was 17.5 and 1300 ng/day for the general population and occupationally exposed individuals, respectively; these values are minor compared with exposure through diet.”
Read that again – that last part: THESE VALUES ARE MINOR COMPARED WITH EXPOSURE THROUGH DIET. In other words, this blog post is scaring people from using recycled toilet paper without quantifying what risks – whether miniscule or great – there are in using recycled TP, and according to the study’s authors, these risks are “minor” compared with getting BPA through food that you eat!
Further, here is the associated scientific paper on BPS: “Bisphenol S, a New Bisphenol Analogue, in Paper Products and Currency Bills and Its Association with Bisphenol A Residues” (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es300876n) Again, I can’t afford paying for the article, but the abstract is available for free. And in this abstract, a graph is provided. And in that graph, it’s pretty clear that toilet paper is down near zero for BPS concentration. There’s not really even a range at all like some of the other paper types – including paper currencies! Now why is this article not encouraging people to swear off cash?!?
So, great, this article has scared people off of using recycled toilet paper, which we all know staves off the deforestry of virgin forests, many of which these days are rain forest in southeast Asia, and it does nothing to educate people on any ACTUAL risks of BPA/BPS exposure with data. Just repeats someone else’s “Hey, there might be some chemicals in this product! Better not use it, OR ELSE!”
Exposure to these estrogen mimicking chemicals in our environment is cumulative and the skin in the nether areas is particularly delicate and thin and VERY close to the reproductive organs (remember that many breast tumors contain parabens likely from underarm products) … and you’re using toilet paper every single day multiple times each day. Not a good choice in my opinion. If you can easily reduce exposure by not using recycled paper and finding another method be it a bidet, virgin pulp or otherwise, that is a wise choice.
You’re just proving my point. You didn’t read the studies. You don’t really know what they said. You’re just basing your post on hypotheticals. You’re not doing anyone any good by just throwing this out there without knowing the the studies actually claim! It’s journalism like this that is partly to blame for why people think low fat foods are inherently good for you.
If you use cash, you’re touching paper products with far higher levels of BPS than toilet paper, and you use your hands for everything! Including wiping your tush! Yet you’re not decrying the use of cash! Yes, estrogen mimicking chemicals is cumulative, but as the graph in the study showed for BPS – you’re not really gettting any in toilet paper. Of course, you would know this if you actually looked at the abstract for the paper, but you didn’t. You just went ahead and wrote, “OMG, no more recycled TP for me! Here’s why!” without checking any facts.
It’s rather unfortunate that you are now decrying the use of recycled paper products without knowing any facts of any potential dangers they may have OR not because your post is based on nothing other than hyperbole. Any good argument can stand on the merits of its data, yet you have given NONE to back up your claims.
You kinda owe it to your readers to do the research BEFORE you write. Otherwise, you are doing them a disservice.
Also, this fallacious concept of “very close to the reproductive organs” should probably be addressed- your rectum and- for those who own one- your vagina are not “very close” to your ovaries, which produce estrogen. Your vagina, while thin-skinned and partially membranous, is located about as far away from your ovaries as your stomach and small intestine. It also contains acidic mucus designed to destroy bacteria, and invasive materials/chemicals, albeit with a relative modicum of efficiency. The food you eat, and the constant contact your entire dermis has with clothes/air/vapors/paper/etc provides a significantly greater inroad for chemicals than the short, incidental exposure you receive when wiping with a bit of TP. Relative proximity doesn’t really have anything to do with anything- if an estrogen-mimicking hormones enters your bloodstream, it enters your bloodstream- after that, it doesn’t exactly matter, now does it? Hence why implanted birth control chemicals are put in the arm and they work just fine.
Oliver – We will have to respectfully disagree. Whether you like it or not, blogging is a form of modern journalism. Just because she is a “mom with a blog” instead of a writer employed at the NY Times, does not change that fact. In this article/post, she was clearly writing to inform, yet she didn’t do any research on what she was informing us of. Criticizing poor writing – or journalism, for that matter – goes with the territory of putting your writing out there. People criticize things on the NYTimes or Washington Post all the time, so me criticizing this post is really no different.
After I read this blog post and before I commented on this post, I googled the journal that was cited, looked up the papers for the name of the researcher that was cited in the article that Sarah cited, and looked at the abstracts. Was that so hard? No. But it’s pretty clear she didn’t even do that. Because with what did she respond to my initial comment? Did she say, “Hey, actually, this is legit. I read the papers and x, y, and z…”? No. She responded with saying she didn’t think is was a good idea to put such TP near your va-jay-jay. Reader Brian has pointed out that that comment is useless because it’s the concentration of BPA in your blood that matters, and it doesn’t really matter from which part of your body it access your bloodstream.
Personally, I read GOSSIP bloggers who check their sources more than she did with this article. And to be honest, that’s really what this article is – it’s no better than gossip yet it’s masquerading as something that’s informing people. It’s really no different than someone who runs a Jennifer Aniston fan blog, citing some article that said she allegedly was a b*tch to Brad Pitt when they were married and saying, “I don’t know about you, but I know that I’ll be better off from here on out watching Angelina Jolie flicks instead.”
And I think that it’s an apt comparison. If you look at some of the other comments to this post, they’re thanking Sarah for informing them that recycled TP is so toxic, yet from the abstracts of the articles, that’s not entirely clear. And it’s unfair to the readers that assumed she read the articles due to citing the name of the journal to not specify that she hasn’t actually read the studies.
The abstract says that 15 paper types were looked at for BPA, and more than 98% of the BPA exposure (which, again, was calculated to be 17.5 ng/day for the general population) came from thermal receipt papers. Which means that the remaining LESS than 2 percent came from the remaining 14 paper types COMBINED. That doesn’t look to me like much toxicity at all from TP. But, again, that’s because I at least reference the sources instead of just spouting off gossip.
This is less about “pushing for a pulitzer” than having respect for readers. My friend notified me about this post, so that’s why I came here. I read what was written in Sarah’s post above and then read most of the 100+ comments yesterday.
Basically, everyone read the post and started freaking out about not being able to use toilet paper and what other options should they start considering. One person points out that the original post is in error, backs it up with substantiation, and the writer of this blog, Sarah, blew it off apparently. There is no update on her post saying that perhaps she misread something because if you look at the actual study, as mentioned above, it doesn’t support what she said above. I’ve seen plenty of other bloggers around the web update their original posts when presented with new information so that errors like these don’t continue to circulate.
Things like this are why lots of bloggers, activists, etc., are often derided by the media. I’d buy the “mom with a blog” line a little bit more if I didn’t get a pop-up ad when I clicked on this site. This writer is making money off this blog; it’s clearly not just a hobby. After seeing how so many people got worked up over much ado about nothing, I’m not sure why anyone can take this writer seriously about anything.
I accessed the BPA article (Liao 2011) using my university login and read the whole thing. After doing so, I have a few comments:
– Yes, the article says that BPA was found in a wide variety of paper products, including toilet paper. It also says that BPA can be found in household dust. But by far the highest concentrations are found in thermal paper (receipts, train/lottery tickets, magazine flyers, etc). The article also provided data on estimated daily intake of BPA from various paper products. In regards to both concentration and intake, toilet paper was a comparatively low BPA risk. The products compared were newspapers, thermal receipts, flyers, magazines, business cards, paper towels, napkins, printing paper, airline luggage tags, airline boarding passes, food cartons, food contact papers, and mailing envelopes. The mean estimated daily intake from toilet paper was 0.0027 ng/day. The total mean daily intake from dermal exposure to paper products was 12.5 ng/day. 98.6% of exposure was due to receipts. Another way of saying this is that dermal intake via toilet paper makes up 0.216% of the average person’s total daily dermal intake. When food exposure is taken into account, this percentage will be much, much less.
– The blog post above says that the source of BPA in thermal paper is not known, but speculates it is due to the recycled content. This is incorrect. BPA is purposefully added to thermal paper to make it have certain properties. It is estimated that 30% of thermal paper ends up in recycling streams. The article speculates that this thermal paper is the main source of BPA in recycled papers. So a key takeaway here is to not put thermal paper in the paper recycling.
– It should be noted that the article does NOT compare exposures or content between virgin vs. recycled papers. It says that “most” of the paper products tested were made from recycled paper. The article cites a Danish study (Vinggaard et a. 2000) that found that recycled paper towel had more BPA than paper towel from virgin sources, but that the virgin paper was also mildly estrogenic due to the presence of a paraben.
After reading this study closely, I’m not going to switch from recycled toilet paper. Yes, it’s troublesome that BPA and other harmful chemicals are ubiquitous in our environment, and I would support further study into how different kinds of exposure to BPA affect our health. But to me, the main takeaways from this article are several: 1) I’m going to make an effort to avoid thermal paper, especially receipts, when possible 2) I’m going to tell the members of my household not to recycle thermal paper and 3) I’m going to have an eye out for efforts to redesign recycling systems to remove thermal paper (or the BPA from finished recycled products). Supporting change at the recycling/production level seems to be the most sustainable option, and most potentially effective in the big picture. The weight of the scientific evidence connecting virgin paper products to unsustainable forestry practices is quite clear, while the available data seems to say that toilet paper and other non-thermal paper products have a minute (but in my opinion negligible) amount of BPA, which constitutes an unknown health risk. Everyone has to make their own choices about acceptable risk, but personally, I think that calling for lifestyle change based on something that makes up less than a quarter of a percent of an average person’s daily exposure to BPA is unreasonable.
If anyone has any questions about what is in the article, let me know and I can try to find it. I’d love to just copy-paste the whole thing, but I don’t want to get on the bad side of the academic journals 🙂
Hope that helps!
Erin – Thanks for sharing more details on the studies. That virgin TP might not necessarily be better is something I suspected since such a comparison between recycled and non-recycled papers was outside the scope of the studies.
Erin, thank you so much for your effort to make it clear. Your comment shows how the article should have been written in the first place!!!!!!!!
Oh yes, I have a question!
Do these studies provide any information on paper coffee-cups and paper food-wraps regarding the amount of BPA/BPS?
Would that be the way to the direct intake of those chemicals?
And by chance, do you know, if plastic water bottles contain BPA? What plastic types contain BPA? Is in every plastic thing?
Thanks again!!
I wish all the blogers would be so clear and would know what they are talking about!
What about the chlorine used to whiten toilet paper?
Hi,
Very interesting, does this go for the regular paper as well? In my company, we are using recycled paper for all the printing stuff.
Maybe we just need to avoid toxic medications and processed foods, eat a proper WAP diet (rich in raw animal fats and proteins, seafood, high omega3:omega6, properly prepared plant foods) and then trust the detoxification mechanisms in our bodies – liver, kidneys, immune system – to do the rest. Weston A. Price found primitive groups who breathed toxic smoke who were perfectly healthy. The Scottish Gaelic tribes lived in thatched-roof houses with no chimneys, burned peat fires inside for cooking and heat – Dr. Price described the black, smoke-filled air of those homes. He found they had perfect health and happy dispositions: no cavities, no tuberculosis, no cancer, no degenerative disease, and no mental illness.
First, I get overwhelmed, reading something like this. Then I move on to think just what you wrote. I agree with you..
Just call me cheap, but I’ve always hated the idea of buying something that you would be flushing down the toilet or throwing in the trash. I started making my own baby wipes when my little one was 8 months old and have been doing it since (approximately 4 years). Everybody in my family uses these “wipeys” except the hubby (can’t quite convince him that it cleans better). Also, I use cut up old t-shirts for napkins/paper towels in the kitchen and anytime somebody needs a tissue (much nicer to the nose also). I wash all of these in with my towels and hang them out in the sun to dry.
I love my “Family Cloth”…
Okay, I think the best solution is a bidet (makeshift, add-on or otherwise) and an organic unbleached cloth wipe.
All paper is treated with incredibly harsh and very toxic chemicals, and there is hardly any paper that does NOT have BPA or BPS in it.
But cloth is also manufactured in an industrial process using lots of harsh chemicals, dyes, and sometimes sizing, The cotton crop is also one of the most heavily treated with pesticides. Best to get unbleached, organic cotton…
and further there is the issue of chloramine in the tap water, the indiscriminate killer of bacteria, good and bad alike. Even better to have a water purification system through the whole house.
It’s tough to stay alive in an industrialized world, but you have to do the best you can. And to tell the truth I don’t do all of the things I mentioned, but we’re working our way there slowly but surely.
Ya, I’m surprised people are actually still using toilet paper. We have had our bidet seat attachment for a few years now, and it just makes so much sense! You feel so clean and fresh.