Learn How to Help Stop Global Warming by Knowing Your Paper Recycling Facts

It is easy to become depressed and feel helpless at the thought of global warming as it often seems like everything you do is at least an indirect cause of it. Fortunately, there are many ways you can easily help stop global warming and become empowered by making small changes in your life.

Two Basic Paper Recycling Facts

If you want to help prevent global warming, then you should become aware of where your paper comes from. Think about the paper towels in your kitchen, the Kleenex on your table or the toilet paper in your bathroom. Reports Laurie David in Stop Global Warming: The Solution Is You!, many of the everyday tissue paper products we use, like toilet paper, come from 100 to 150 year old virgin forests in Northern Canada.[1] When virgin forests are cut down to supply our paper needs, they can no longer help process the gases which are warming our planet.

Don't despair though! Saving these trees is easier than you think. As David notes, "If every household in the United States replaced just one roll of virgin toilet paper with one recycled post-consumer waste roll, 424,000 trees would still be standing." The problem is that most brand name tissue papers – Kleenex, Scott, Angel Soft, Cottonelle, Bounty, Brawny, Puffs, Charmin –have zero recycled fibers in their products.[2]

Use Your Buying Power to Stop Prevent Global Warming

This means that it is your duty to make the change and actively seek out products which use recycled material. Adding to the fact that you'll help prevent global warming, you will also save money, as value tissues are often less expensive, not because their products have less quality, but because value brands do not spend millions of dollars on advertisements, such as Charmin's 2007 Super Bowl ad.

At present, the US government does not mandate any policy regarding the fiber content of tissue papers. Furthermore, a mandate which would require producers to include recycled or post-consumer materials in their products is unlikely to occur in the near future. The easiest and perhaps most effective way to discourage destructive forestry practices is to make a financial statement by purchasing from companies that strive to use recycled fibers. The following is a list of toilet paper brands which you can buy for your home which will reduce the number of virgin trees that are cut down and help prevent global warming. These brands are made out of either 100% recycled material or a high percentage of post-consumer material:

Best Value, Marcal, 365 Everyday Value, Colortex, Earth Friendly Products, Fiesta, April Soft, Doucelle, Green Forest, Cascades, Mr. Jumbo, Natural Value, Pert, Planet, Seventh Generation Recylced Bathroom Tissue Papericon, Soft'N' Fluffy, Trader Joe's, Ultra Val-U and Velvet.[3]

Once you've successfully upgraded your toilet tissues don't stop there! Strive to broaden your awareness of recycled and post-consumer products. Remember, you as the consumer hold the power to change the way paper products are used.

The future comes with every new day. The world seems bright tomorrow; but it is up to you to do what is necessary now to maintain that for the years ahead.

[1]Stop Global Warming: The Solution Is You!

[2] www.conservatree.com

[3] ibid