Bamboo toilet paper
It’s tall, it’s green, and it’s the favourite snack of everyone’s favourite black and white bear. Most of us have some basic facts on bamboo, but as it makes its way into more and more of our everyday products it’s worth looking a bit deeper into this remarkable, renewable, plant.
At Naked Sprout we’ve used bamboo to create the most sustainable toilet rolls, in the UK. We’re not just bamboo advocates, we’re bamboo enthusiasts, and we want to spread the word about this fantastic plant. Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions on all things bamboo toilet roll!
Is bamboo toilet paper better for you?
Two factors influence the health impact of toilet rolls; the raw material, and how it’s treated. Bamboo as a raw material is completely safe for all kinds of uses. It doesn’t contain any toxins or potential irritants, and many bamboo products are considered hypoallergenic because the raw material contains no potential allergens.
The trickier issue is what happens once that raw material is processed to make toilet paper. The natural colour of the cellulose in bamboo is brown; when you see a white roll you are seeing a roll that has had this colour bleached out of it. There are lots of different chemicals that can be used for bleaching, and some are more harmful than others, but recent studies are showing links between bleached toilet rolls and a range of health concerns. We play it on the safe side at Naked Sprout, we don’t use any bleach at all.
So we have a natural material, manufactured with no harsh chemicals, and we end up with a product that is as gentle on you and the environment as it can possibly be. When we got our ISEGA certification that our kitchen roll is food safe we actually went the extra mile and got it for our toilet roll as well (not that we expect you to eat it!)
Does bamboo toilet paper block drains in the UK?
It doesn’t matter how sustainably it’s made, a bamboo roll is no good for the home if it won’t play with your drains. The good news is that, once it’s been made into tissue, bamboo breaks down in much the same way as the raw materials used for standard tissue or recycled rolls, so your drains won’t notice the switch.
After shipping more than five million rolls to customers in the UK, many of whom have subscriptions with us, we’re confident in our products. But we’re sticklers for details at Naked Sprout, and we’ll never stop testing out products to make sure the quality is up to scratch. Every single batch is tested to make sure the wet strength and the disintegration fall within standard industry norms for UK toilet paper.
That’s good news for the 95% of UK houses that are connected up to mains sewerage, but what about those with septic tanks? Because Naked Sprout toilet roll breaks down naturally and contains no harsh chemicals it’s perfect for septic tanks, you can ask the members of our team who have septic tanks at home!
Is bamboo toilet paper ok to flush?
If it wasn’t ok to flush bamboo toilet paper we wouldn’t make it. Bamboo has some unique properties when it comes to its sustainability, but once it’s in your loo it’s not any different to other standard toilet tissue materials. So you can flush with confidence.
And because Naked Sprout loo paper is made without bleach, dyes, or any harsh chemicals it won’t cause any trouble further down the line either.
What are the benefits of bamboo toilet paper?
Bamboo is finding its way into more and more products because of its sustainability as a raw material. Bamboo thrives on just rainwater, maturing much faster than many traditional sources of timber, and renewing itself naturally. It grows like a grass would, because it is a grass! Luckily the species of bamboo used for tissue production is not invasive. In fact, when it’s cultivated responsibly it can actually restore some of the damage done to forest lands that have been degraded by intensive forestry.
But sustainability isn’t just about how quickly a plant grows. To understand the potential benefits of using bamboo for commercial products we need to understand what happens once it’s harvested. Manufacturers have (rightly) faced extra scrutiny when they are making bamboo products such as wet wipes and clothing. This is because these products require a spinnable fibre, and making this out of bamboo requires some very heavy-duty chemicals and processing.
This is not the case for the process used to make our Naked Sprout toilet rolls, kitchen rolls, and facial tissues. Our products are made by pulping, shaping, and drying raw bamboo, and our factory only uses renewable energy that it has generated on site to make our rolls. So we’re retaining all of the benefits of this wonderful plant, without any hidden catches. No harsh materials, no polluting manufacturing process, and a final product that is safe enough to eat.
(But again, we don’t expect you to eat it!) Shop Naked Sprout Bamboo toilet paper here.
