By ISABELLA O’MALLEY

Toilet paper, a product that is used for a few seconds before being disposed of forever, is typically made with trees, energy-intensive manufacturing processes and chemicals that can pollute the environment.

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Experts say more consumers are seeking toilet paper made from recycled content or sustainable materials, but it can be hard to know what to look for.

Sustainable toilet paper often costs more, but can have significant environmental benefits. According to the Environmental Paper Network, a coalition of nonprofits, more than 1 billion gallons (3.8 billion liters) of water and 1.6 million trees could be saved if every American used one roll of toilet paper made from recycled content instead of a roll made from forest fibers.

Here are some recommendations for buying sustainable toilet paper or reducing overall toilet paper use.

Toilet paper made from recycled fibers

North American toilet paper has traditionally been made from fibers from trees in Canada and eucalyptus plantations in Brazil. Pulp made from the trees is bleached to create a bright white color, but the chlorine that’s often used can hurt the environment. Large amounts of electricity and heat are used to remove moisture and form square sheets.

Increasingly, manufacturers are making toilet paper from recycled paper products, which avoids material from freshly cut trees, and are using chlorine-free bleaching techniques. Once used, toilet paper itself is flushed and not recycled.

Looking for recycled content is a good place for environmentally conscious consumers to start, said Gary Bull, professor emeritus of forest economics at the University of British Columbia. Preconsumer materials include scrap materials from manufacturing or unsold paper. Postconsumer materials come from paper products that have already been used.

Toilet paper sits on shelves at Target in Alexandria, Va., Jan. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Phillis)

Making toilet paper from postconsumer recycled fibers improves its sustainability because paper is “one of the easiest materials on the planet to recycle,” Bull said.

Evaluating sustainability claims

The best way for a scientist to evaluate the carbon footprint of an item is doing a life cycle assessment, which calculates the environmental impacts from when a tree is a seedling to when its fibers are converted into toilet paper and flushed down the drain, Bull said. But that method isn’t within reach of consumers, so advocates have undertaken third-party assessments.

Some companies add those labels to packaging to show that their processes have been vetted. Bull said labels on bath tissue from the Forest Stewardship Council or the Sustainable Forestry Initiative indicate the company is making scientifically-proven efforts to be sustainable. Both groups’ standards include conserving water, wildlife, and biodiversity as well as compliance with applicable forestry laws to keep ecosystems healthy.

The nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council also publishes an annual report that grades toilet papers from A+ to F, with the highest-ranked products being unbleached or bleached without chlorine, containing recycled content and avoiding harmful forestry practices. Aria, Green Forest, Natural Value, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods 365 100% Recycled received the highest letter grade in 2025, with all made entirely from recycled materials.

Toilet paper sits on shelves at a Trader Joe’s in Alexandria, Va., Jan. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Phillis)

The “The Issue with Tissue” report was launched in 2019, and NRDC corporate campaign advocate Ashley Jordan said she has noticed dozens of sustainable toilet paper brands have emerged over the last six years.

Kory Russel, assistant professor of landscape architecture and environmental studies at the University of Oregon, said that when people purchase a sustainable product it sends a message to corporations to make more eco-friendly products available.

Sustainable toilet paper brands typically cost more per square foot than conventional products. But Russel said prices will likely drop if consumers continue buying it and manufacturers expand production.

“If more people are buying sustainable toilet paper and demanding it, there should be economies of scale and prices should fall to match that of conventional toilet paper,” he said.

Mark Pitts, executive director of tissue at the American Forest & Paper Association, whose members include large toilet paper manufacturers such as Kimberly-Clark Corporation and Georgia-Pacific, told The Associated Press that sustainability is a core industry focus and members have reported reductions of greenhouse gas emissions along the supply chain. He said that members follow responsible forestry practices and have increased their use of recycled material.

Bamboo, alternative materials and energy

Alternative materials such as fast-growing bamboo are often billed as more sustainable than toilet paper made from trees, but consumers should focus on toilet paper made with recycled materials instead, said Ronalds Gonzalez, an associate professor at North Carolina State University and expert on fibers used in the hygiene industry.

This photo shows stacked toilet paper in Arlington, Va., Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Phillis)

Gonzalez said pollution from manufacturing processes can reduce the benefits of using bamboo. Gonzalez recently co-authored a study that found bamboo toilet paper made in China that is available in the U.S. had a higher environmental impact than toilet paper made in the U.S. with imported forest fibers, largely because Chinese manufacturers use electricity generated by coal. The study found the bamboo toilet paper’s environmental impacts could be reduced when it was produced in regions that use renewable energy.

Bidets can remove the need for toilet paper

Bidets are devices that allow people to rinse after using the bathroom so they can reduce or avoid wiping. They’re another way people can reduce their toilet paper use.

Bidets, which are popular in Europe, can be a separate wash basin or a device added to toilets that generate a stream of water. Some people still use a small amount of toilet paper to dry off. Bidets that can be attached to your toilet and don’t use electricity can cost around $30, while toilet seats with fancy options such as heated water and air dryers can exceed $600. Some bidets require a plumber or contractor to install.

Bidets are a sustainable alternative to conventional toilet paper because “you’re not using any sort of logging, it’s water that’s already coming to your household and it’s very little water,” Russel said.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

JD FRATZKE: Chef and author celebrates release of his book “Dharma Butcher,” with music by Molly Maher. After the reading Fratzke hosts a tasting featuring some of the recipes in the book.  4 p.m. Jan. 11, The Velvet Antler on the second floor of The Gnome Pub, 498 Selby Ave., St. Paul.

PEG GUILFOYLE: Discusses her essay collection “An Eye for Joy.” 7 p.m. Thursday, Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls. Free; registration required at magersandquinn.com.

(Courtesy of the author)

RICARDO LEVINS MORALES: Minnesota artist and organizer who uses his art as a form of political “medicine” to support individual and collective healing discusses his book “The Land Knows the Way: Eco-Social Insights for Liberation” in Friends of the St. Paul Public Library’s Fireside Reading series. 6:30 p.m.  Wednesday, Rondo Community Library at Hallie Q. Brown Community Center, 270 N. Kent St., St. Paul. Free; Zoom information at thefriends.org.

PARKINSON/TOSO: Chandra Parkinson, educator and author of “The Book of Ritual Baths: A Guide to Spiritual Cleansing and Renewal,” in conversation with Maria Tosto, yoga teacher, spiritual somatic coach and author of “Heal What Hurts.” 7 p.m. Wednesday, Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls. Free; registration required at magersandquinn.com.

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Two very different debut novels are today’s offerings. One is the story of women strikers in Detroit in the 1930s, the other a searing look at what bipolar disorder does to a woman’s life.

(Courtesy of the author.)

“Not Yet Lost”: by Janis M. Falk (She Writes Press, $17.99)

If you want an interesting history of people’s struggles in the early days of the labor movement, this novel by a resident of Door County, Wis., will teach you.

In a Polish community in Detroit in 1937, Florence and her fierce friend Basia hand-roll cigars for very low wages, care for children and try to be home to make supper. Detroit, home of U.S. auto manufacturing, is in the throes of labor organizing. The city is showing the first signs of coming out of the Great Depression, as people begin to buy cars. But the industry, and small businesses such as the cigar factory, run on low wages, long hours and unsafe, unsanitary working conditions. Poor immigrants who came to America for a better life are standing up for their rights as they band together in the American Federation of Labor (AFL), United Auto Workers (UAW) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

One day the cigar factory manager pushes Basia too far in giving orders and a strike begins. The women take their tactics from men in the auto factories who have been striking, as well as women in other cigar workplaces. But Florence’s husband, Alex, is against this defiance, even more so when he unwittingly joins the Black Legion, whose members hate these Eastern Europeans and will do everything to keep them from thriving. (Florence and Alex are based on the author’s grandparents.)

Falk, a Detroit native, writes vividly about Florence and Basia’s strike, when they lock themselves in the cigar factory with other women. They are tired and worried about their children, but determined, even when police turn fire hoses blasting icy water on them. Women in the tight-knit Polish community who are not striking bring food and other supplies and see that kids and husbands of strikers are fed. And when Florence experiences a devastating death, she picks up the mantle of leadership and rallies her fellow strikers.

Readers are introduced to real-life early labor organizers such as Mary Zuk and Stanley and Margaret Nowak, as well as artist Diego Rivera, whose Detroit Industry Murals depict everything the author says she loves about the city, including innovation, hard work and the working class. This famous artwork, named a National Historic Landmark, can be seen at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

There is so much energy in Falk’s writing that the reader can feel tensions in the city as officials, some working secretly with the bosses, try to stop the cigar factory women from organizing, call them Communists and demean them for being Polish. She seamlessly weaves in women’s domestic duties, family life and the dishes they cook that people ate in the Old Country.

Don’t miss this important read, published by a small press.

Teaser quote: ” ‘Have you heard the news? It’s not just factories anymore! Shop girls are on strike. Women took over Woolworth’s drugstore. The downtown location. Even some customers refused to leave in order to support the workers…And shoe stores and hotels. The world’s with us ladies. It’s our time now.’ ”

(Courtesy of Coffee House Press)

“The Mind Reels”: by Fredrick deBoer (Coffee House Press, $28)

We take a horrifying trip through the mind of a bipolar woman in this novel from a Connecticut-based author who is himself bipolar, published by a Minneapolis-based press.

Alice is an ordinary young woman whose first mental break happens when she is a college freshman living in a dorm room where “she will go insane.” She’s so hyper her patient roommate moves out because she can’t stand Alice’s all-night talking. Alice is paranoid, thinking her roommate is rearranging her shower supplies and that someone might be poisoning her food. She can’t concentrate and only wants to sleep unless her brain is firing and then she runs, barefoot, across campus in terror. There are more hospitalizations and indifferent doctors who pile on more meds.

Years pass and Alice is 36, overweight from post-hospitalization meds that cause her difficulties the author explains at length. She’s done with indifferent sex with boys whom she wants to please, doing whatever they ask her to do. She has a minimal job, exactly what she’s looking for, so she doesn’t have to interact with other people. She’s mentally stable but indifferent to life too. Pills even out her emotions but her brain is joyless. She sees nothing in her future.

In the end (not a spoiler), Alice is sitting on her old couch facing two bottles of pills. One holds her prescription medication; the other is filled with a cocktail of pills that will kill her. Which does she take? The author doesn’t tell us. Some readers will be happy to imagine Alice chooses life. Others might feel the author cheats here, leaving it up to the reader to decide. But this is deBoer’s story. It seems only fair that after accompanying Alice on her long, cruel bipolar journey we should learn her fate.

DeBoer’s non-fiction books are “The Cult of Smart” and “How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement.” His writing has been published in national newspapers and magazines.

Teaser quote: “In her brain, though, her synapses fired with an alien and mechanistic kind of purpose; there was no chaos, only an immensely misguided order. Some deep bestial neurological structures fired inappropriately and stoked within her an instinct of brute survival. The fragile skeleton of her ego threatened to snap under the pressure of the animal forces that pressed down on her consciousness, her narrative mind sagging and distended beneath pitiless and grandiose feeling. She must run. She must run. She must run.”

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In last week’s Skywatch, I described at least some of the celestial treasures waiting for you within the great constellation Orion the Hunter. You can have a lot of fun checking them out with even a small telescope or binoculars. You can dig for other treasures just by browsing “celestial objects in Orion.” There are also smartphone apps, such as Sky Guide, and great star map software, like Stellarium, which, by the way, is absolutely free. Relatively inexpensive smart photographic scopes also do a wonderful job of helping you get images of Orion’s treasures that will blow you away. Check last week’s Skywatch column for details.

While Orion the Hunter is certainly rich astronomically, the mythological legends of the mighty hunter are equally rich. There are so many stories and there’s no such thing as the correct mythology, since … it’s mythology!

One of my favorite stories about Orion comes from the Greeks and Romans. His father was Poseidon, god of the sea, and his mother was princess Euryale, who had a quite a reputation as a great hunter. It’s no wonder that Orion took a real liking to hunting, even as a young boy. He developed the discipline of patience he would need on long stakeouts. He also sharpened his senses of smell and sight, and especially night vision. That was essential since most serious hunting took place overnight.

(Mike Lynch)

Orion grew up to be a large and handsome young man, and like most hunters he preferred being a hermit. While he didn’t have human company, he traveled with two faithful hunting dogs that sniffed out potential prey and chased them down. Orion also traveled with a massive club and shield to fend off large predators like lions, bears, or wild boar.

Orion’s favorite prey was wild hare. Many times, the hares would outsmart and outrun him and his dogs, but when they caught one it was a sumptuous feast for both him and his hounds. He would also place a little bit of meat on hot coals as a sacrifice to Artemis, the goddess of hunting.

Artemis would watch over hunters and do the best she could to keep them safe. Since he was so handsome, Artemis took a real liking to Orion and even accompanied him on some of his hunts. Orion began to respond to Artemis’ affection. Suddenly though, Artemis had to cut off this fling, because gods and goddesses were not supposed to have romances with mortals. Zeus, the king of the gods, was Artemis’ father and she didn’t want to incur his wrath.

Even though they remained friends, Orion was bummed out, but life and the hunts went on. Romance was still on his mind, though. In his travels he would periodically run into seven orphaned daughters of Atlas, one of the former chief gods that Zeus overthrew. Even though he imposed never-ending punishment on Atlas, Zeus had a soft spot in his heart for his daughters.

Orion’s interest in the seven daughters intensified and he began to pursue them much more aggressively. The young ladies pleaded for help from Zeus. He responded by changing them into a flock of doves and eventually into the bright Pleiades star cluster that still adorns our autumn and winter heavens.

That incensed Orion, He became a madman, a reckless hunter who ravaged the countryside, trampling fauna, as well as looting and destroying the camps of other hunters. The goddess Gaea, the grandmother of Zeus and the goddess of the Earth had to stop this menace, permanently! She whipped up a significantly oversized scorpion to hunt down and kill Orion. Its deadly stinger was full of venom, much more potent and deadly than any snake.

On a moonless night she sent the scorpion out after his human prey. A few nights later, he found Orion, snuck up, and jumped him from behind. Orion managed to shake him off but a battle ensued that went on all night. Orion was getting the best of the beast. He was just about to land a crushing and killing blow with his club when he tripped over a giant boulder and hit the ground. That was the Scorpion’s big chance. It quickly thrust its heavily poisoned stinger into Orion’s heart and that was it; the hunter was history.

Shortly after, Artemis discovered the lifeless body of Orion. She also could see in the distance the giant scorpion in retreat. Out of deep grief and anger, the goddess grabbed the scorpion and flung it so far into the sky that it became the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion. Artemis then returned to the slain Orion and wept over him for hours and hours. Finally, she cradled his body in her arms and flew off with him. When she was high enough in the sky, she gently tossed Orion a little higher, magically turning him into the bright constellation we still see on winter nights. She also tossed up Orion’s hunting dogs and a wild hare into the heavens along with him to keep her dead former boyfriend company. We still see them as the constellations Canis Major and Minor, the big and little dog respectively, along with Lepus the Hare.

As a bonus, she made sure Orion was close to the Pleiades so he could forever admire their heavenly beauty. Her father Zeus placed Taurus the Bull between the Seven Little Sisters and Orion. Even in death the rogue hunter couldn’t be trusted.

Such drama in the night sky!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and adventurepublications.net. Mike is available for private star parties. You can contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.

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