Into the bowl: an exploration

It’s something you use every day, hopefully. When you wake up you’ll use it. After drinking or eating you’ll use it, and right before you go to bed you’re going to want to use it.

What am I talking about? You guessed it, or maybe you didn’t but I’m talking about toilet paper. If you think about it, we use it daily and on a very regular basis.

Until a couple of years ago I never really took an interest in the kind of toilet paper I was using. I’m sure Mum just got the cheapest one available because in a family of 6 we went through a lot of toilet paper. But that’s the thing, everyone goes through a lot of toilet paper. It’s just the way our bodies function. We use the bathroom and we use toilet paper. Well that’s what I do in the toilet anyway, I’m not sure about you!

What do you reckon would happen if the toilet paper people used was not from a sustainable or recycled source?

Guess what? It’s not good news. Worldwide, the equivalent of almost 270,000 trees is either flushed or dumped in landfills every day and roughly 10 percent of that total is attributable to toilet paper. That’s every day!!

So we’re talking about 27,000 perfectly lovely trees literally going straight down the toilet bowl and into landfill. That’s obviously not good for the environment, nor is it good for the carbon dioxide floating around in our atmosphere. Trees breathe in carbon dioxide and give us nice fresh oxygen to breathe. Thank you trees, we love you.

But according to the Australian Conservation Foundation, only 5% of the toilet paper we flush away in Australia is made from recycled paper. Only 5%, you’ve got to be joking!! The rest is thought to be from plantations or native-forest trees.

Thankfully using recycled paper can help. Every tonne of paper recycled saves 13 trees, 2.5 barrels of oil, 4100 kilowatts of electricity, four cubic metres of landfill and 31,380 litres of water. Boom, go recycled paper, you’re the best. So what can you do?

Now that you’ve realised maybe your toilet paper isn’t the most sustainable option around, you’re probably thinking, which one should I get? Just as we discovered with tuna, packaging and labelling can be very misleading, so friends you’ve got to read before you buy!

What’s the best kind of toilet paper?

Personally I buy toilet paper that is 100% recycled paper and is owned and made in Australia. There’s a couple of brands that fit the bill. Lucky for us, the guys at Shop Ethical have done the hard work for us and have figured out the good and the bad brands.

Up the top is Earthwise, a brand from Encore Tissue. They use 100% post-consumer recycled waste paper. This means that the materials used in this toilet paper are onto their second life! Yay! 

Some of their packaging is also recycled paper which is even better! Usually Earthwise is used in workplaces and businesses. Check out what your workplace uses. See if they can change to recycled toilet paper! Next up is Safe toilet paper which is also owned by Encore Tissue and has the Planet Ark seal of approval.

The one that I’ve been able to find at my nearest Coles is Naturale toilet paper, which is made by ABC Tissue. It’s 100% recycled, made from used office paper. They’ve even told us how they’re helping the Daintree Rainforest in Queensland on the back. It’s also got little frogs on the toilet paper to make you feel happy when you go to the bathroom.

Naturale toilet paper

But the toilet paper that’s been getting all the attention lately, and the one people have been telling me to buy is the WhoGives A Crap toilet paper. It looks super fancy, can also be used as an art piece in your bathroom and helps more than just your bum. 

The main reason my friends tell me to buy it is because Who Gives A Crap gives 50% of their profits to WaterAid to build toilets and improve sanitation in developing countries. They say that 40% of the world’s population don’t have access to a toilet and by building them, they’re helping to stop potentially deadly diseases like diarrhoea. This is great news and such a unique idea. You’re not only buying toilet paper that’s 100% post-consumer (remember the second life!) recycled waste, but you’re helping the lives of people who are in need of it.

Who Gives A  Crap?

The only downfall is the cost. In comparison to other sustainable papers, you’re going to pay about 3 times more. We’re hoping that most of this extra cost goes straight into building toilets for people that need them! But if you’re willing to fork out a bit extra for a very worthy cause, then Who Gives A Crap is definitely your bathroom buddy! 

Things to remember when buying toilet paper: 

• Always read the labelling. Although the packaging looks super green and sustainable it might not be.
• Read the back, find out if it’s 100% recycled and whether it’s been imported. Less carbon miles the better!
• Don’t be fooled if it says ‘made from 100% renewable sources’. Anything that grows out of the ground is technically a renewable source. But we don’t really need to get it out of the ground, do we?

Recycled toilet paper!

What's up with tuna?

I was recently in the supermarket doing my weekly shop when I stopped in front of the tuna. Jen and I like to have those little 95g tuna cans for lunch to pop in our sandwiches. Now I must admit that eating tuna is probably not sustainable in itself but I’m working on finding an alternative. For the time being, I want to be able to buy the most sustainable tuna I can and not feel like I’m eating the last tuna in the ocean when I bite into my sandwich.

So, there I was standing in front of all the tuna, scanning for the most sustainable one I could find. But here’s the trouble, I have no idea which one I needed to buy. The cans say stuff like, “future friendly sourcing”, “dolphin friendly” and “sustainably caught”.

My personal favourite is the Coles brand of tuna that says, “Our skipjack tuna is caught by a select fleet of fishing vessels using fishing methods that reduce by-catch and therefore help safeguard the environment”. In other words, blah blah, your label is bullshit and means absolutely nothing.

Does anyone else feel me here? So many products out there just say the buzz words of sustainability and think they’re actually being sustainable. No sir, you are not! I know your tricks and will not fall for them! 

The Checkout knows that I'm talking about

I decided to take the matter into my own hands as I stood in the middle of the shopping isle. I picked up a can of John West tuna and dialled their customer hotline. A lovely gentlemen answered the phone and I proceeded to ask him what the labelling meant on the tuna and whether it was actually ‘sustainably caught’. To cut a long story short, this guy had no idea. He said that I should look for John West’s pole and line range but that was nowhere to be found in Coles. He also said that they’re trying to make all their ranges pole and line. I said they really should do that, and soon. 

The best and worst tuna to buy. Fish4Ever wins!

So what’s the best tuna to buy?
My sources and research tells me that Pole and Line is the best method of fishing. It means literally what it says, a fisherman has a pole and a line and is trying to catch some tuna. Each tuna is individually caught which means that other marine life dooesn’t get caught up. The best type of tuna that you can be is Skipjack as its numbers are healthy. The worst is Bluefin and yellowfin as they are being critically overfished and nearing extinction. Bluefin is the one you find in sushi so stay away if you can!

What the worst tuna to buy?
Well, pretty much any tuna that isn’t caught by pole and line is pretty disastrous for the environment.  There’s longliners (massive lines stretching hundreds of kilometres), fish aggregating devices (FADs) and purse seines (big F-off nets). All of these methods aim to get as many tuna (and other whatever else might be around) into their massive nets/lines the size and length of football fields, all the while destroying the marine environment around them. These nets and lines scrap the bottom of the ocean, not giving two hoots about any living thing out there.

Imagine that scene in Finding Nemo when Nemo gets caught up in the net and tells all the fish to swim down. Well that’s the nets, but a whole lot bigger and no one is telling the fish to swim down.


But it’s not all bad news. There are more and more companies using Pole and Line methods because customers are asking for it and caring about where and how their tuna is caught. And in this age of technology, there are apps that help us distinguish between the good tuna and the dodgey tuna. I’d recommend getting the Sustainable Seafood Guide app as it tells you what’s ok to eat and what’s not.

Greenpeace have also developed the Canned Tuna guide which tells you which tuna to buy and which one to avoid. They've even given us 6 reasons why we should be pole and line! Check it out here. 

There are lots of people out there who care about eating sustainably and I'm sure you're one of them. You just need to make sure you're a conscious shopper. Take a second to find out if your tuna is sustainable. If it's not, find one that is! 

I think it's the label..

The Checkout on ABC looked closer into the whole tuna debate. If you've got a minute or two I'd check it out. Start watching from about 17.44 to learn about tuna! 

Sustainable who?

The idea to start this blog came from conversations I’ve been having with friends and family. Most of these conversations followed a similar trend:

“How messed up is the world?!” “Pretty messed up. Our government is doing nothing! We’re doing nothing about climate change and people are already feeling the effects of it!” “It’s so frustrating, I feel hopeless, it’s hopeless, let’s just watch Broad City.”
Very few of these conversations about sustainability, the environment and the future were positive. They all had an over-arching sense of doom and gloom. And let’s face it, we are pretty screwed, and we’ve messed up big time. Probably not us personally, but we’re people and we all have brains and we’ve let it happen. We’ve demanded things, companies have produced them, and torn down half the Amazon to make them and now we’re in this position. Pretty f*ked.

But here’s where I want us to stop, and I want to think. How do we un-do, or at least try and change the situation we’re in? How can I, as one solitary human being change my lifestyle to be more sustainable, and to try and influence others to do the same?

I would say I’m pretty sustainable and environmentally conscious. I would say my family and my friends feel the same way. We care about the environment and we’re not going to go out and destroy it just cos we can. I’m a self-proclaimed greenie but not the devoted type who tie themselves to trees and live in the forest for years on end (that would be the dream!). I care about the world around me, and want to make sure it’s still here and kicking when my kids have kids and their kids have kids.

I recycle everything I can, I buy from the op-shop when I can, I ride my bike everywhere, I attend climate change rallies, I turn off lights and I turn the tap off when I’m brushing my teeth (who really still does that?). That would make me pretty sustainable, right?

Probably not.

That's where this blog comes in. 
If you choose to accept, you are going to follow my journey as I try and make my life, and its style a little more sustainable, both environmentally and ethically. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to pack my bags, sell everything I own and live in the bush for the rest of my life. It means I’m going to try and participate fully as a member of society, still going about my daily business but do it in consciously sustainable way. And I mean truly sustainable. None of this half-ass biz of “but I used my keep-cup yesterday, I can use a non-recyclable styrofoam cup today, it’ll be ok. What’s one more to landfill anyway..?” No thank-you.
I’m going to try and be sustainable in what I eat, what I wear, what I do and where my money goes. So many of us out there want to do the right thing for the world but just don’t know how. We want to make the world a greener, fairer and a more prosperous place but we don’t know where to start. 
I don’t know where to start and I certainly don't know all the answers but I’m going to find out. There’s gotta be an app, or two for it and I’m going to find it. 

We can try though..