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Who wants to talk about toilet paper? No, me neither. But the guys behind Who Gives A Crap have made an essential, but, shall we say, unglamorous aspect of our daily lives a little better for the planet.
Their toilet paper is made from recycled paper (or bamboo if you’re willing to pay a little extra) and 50% of their profits go to help build toilets and improve sanitation in the developing world.
This is an unbelievably important issue that is largely ignored by the aid agencies and western countries. Without toilets, disease flourishes causing untold misery and death all for lack of something most of us take for granted.
The great news is that the paper itself is great quality and comes on rolls with twice as many sheets as most other brands. I’ve compared prices with the UK’s leading brand (Andrex) and Who Gives a Crap costs around half as much per sheet. The bamboo stuff is a little more expensive but so smoooth.
So, why not give them a try. Sometimes it seems as though we can’t do much about the policies of our governments, but if we all did a little, then people around the world would benefit along with the environment, and I call that a win win.
You can find the UK shop here.
The US shop is here.
And the Australia shop is here.
Toilet paper must cost a LOT in the UK! I checked what we pay for toilet paper here in the USA since this seems like a good idea. What we buy costs $0.15 per 100 sheets (for 2-ply) so this is 67% more!
Since trees are a renewable resource (at least in the USA) it is hard to justify this much more cost.
Hi Dick. Thanks for your comment.
I was comparing against the premium brand we normally buy (the wife is fussy) – it may well be more expensive in the UK as many things are (trying buying fuel here, for example!).
Bear in mind that while, of course, more trees can be planted to make up for the paper used, if that paper is being recycled, then twice as much paper is produced by a single tree.
For us, the biggest driver, to be honest, is the support for toilets in developing countries as this is a huge problem, so we’d have been happy to pay a small premium but are chuffed that we get to do this and spend less.