I had a conversation with my girlfriend recently, in which she mentioned she won’t buy Charmin because it is made, at least in part, with paper from Brazilian Rainforests (!?). Obviously, have some grasp of the paper industry and the nature of the cutting and burning of rainforests for farmland, I am extremely skeptical. Having done a quick search of the internet and the forums here at Straightdope, I found no authoritative answers. So, is Charmin made from wood pulp from rainforests? Is there some mystery ingredient that contributes to deforestation in developing countries? Lastly, perhaps Proctor and Gamble has some sort of policies that would lead her to believe they are contributing to rainforest deforestation?
Well, you can take this website for what it’s worth.
http://www.ecolinks.net/ecolink/environment.html
They have a 4-page “shopping list” of things to boycott that includes virtually EVERYTHING that’s on sale down at my friendly neighborhood Kroger store. It requires Acrobat Reader to load, dunno if that’s a problem.
No info yet on whether P & G actually is using the rainforest to make toilet paper for fat cat American imperialists, but my WAG would be “no”, for simple economic reasons. Why would they go to the expense of shipping product here, when they can almost certainly make it much cheaper at home?
An ultimately fruitless journey down the back roads of the Internet. No easy answers.
Bear in mind that Proctor & Gamble seems to be the Evil Industry Giant of choice for a certain segment of the population. There’s the recurring Urban Legend associating P & G with Satanism, there’s PETA, who want them to stop animal testing, and they were even boycotted by the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA during the strike. http://www.backstage.com/news/la/lan2000101323142.asp
Here’s P & G’s main page. http://www.pg.com/main.jhtml?rc=-5
And here’s the Charmin website http://www.charmin.com (it has an indescribably twee animation for the “Loading…” thing–you have to go look at it. But evidently you can only look at it once, because after that if you Go To charmin.com it just gets it off your cookie or something and doesn’t give you the animation–bummer.)
Here’s the Charmin FAQ. Nothing in here about rainforests, though. http://www.charmin.com/FAQs.html
The P & G kids’ page, how paper towels are made (no mention of Charmin). http://www.pg.com/about_pg/student_info/tissues_products.jhtml
“For more information on papermaking”, it gives a link to http://www.wipapercouncil.org/homepage.htm
which points out that trees are a crop, like any other, and that Wisconsin papermakers, at least, practice sustainable harvests. Again, I find it hard to believe that it’s economically feasible to cut down Brazilian rain forests and ship them up here, either as wood pulp or as toilet paper.
And just for the heck of it, I have to share this splendid website with my fellow Dopers.
http://www.demonbuster.com/png.html
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Just pointing out that it’s spelled Procter.
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I absolutely agree with all the points you raised, which is why I was hoping to find something addressing and debunking the idea. To think that old growth wood would be used for anything other than lumber seems a bit silly also. Thanks for the leads and information thus far, some of it I had found myself in fruitless searches.
“rain forest pulp Amazon” in Google. No specific mentions of P & G or Charmin, so far.
http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm
So evidently they’re not cutting down old growth to make T.P., just cutting it down and replanting with pulp trees.
OTOH, maybe in 1997, they were. “rain forest Amazon pulp toilet” brings up a number of hits. http://forests.org/archive/general/oldgrtp.htm
Kimberley-Clark, not P & G. There were more hits but somebody wants to use the computer so I’ll stop.
The magic word in Google seems to be “pulp”.
Still no definitive answer… any others want to try?
Can’t speak for the specific companies in question, but:
TP, and other lower-grade paper products are often made with pulp processed from tree remnants, such as stumps. It is cost-effective to ship, as the environmental pollution and hazards associated with pulp mills are legion, as anyone from Georgia or the Pacific Northwest should know (cf. “Tacoma Aroma”).
That said, it is unlikely that the old-growth is being cut down for TP or newsprint or whatever. Rather, the high value dipterocarps [hardwoods like mahogany] or other high value woods like rosewood) are cut for timber, planks at the sawmill, or sometimes chipped for plywood [the latter a wasteful, ugly operation, saw that in PNG] and the “trash” trees, and stumps and remnants go to the pulp mill.
The old-growth was cut already, so the pulping is maximizing output; the objections should be centered not on the cutting for TP, but rather the standards used for the pulp mill & its concomitant ecological hazards.
Oh yeah, its a fact all right. Mr. Whipple himself used to eat endangered spider monkeys for lunch.
Are those spider monkeys served as in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” Deeee-Lish!
I fully and readily agree as to the environmental impacts of the wood and paper processing industry. Being a geotechnical/environmental engineer in NH, I see all to well the problems caused by the paper industry. My skepticism came in specific claims regarding Charmin and South American Rainforests. It doesn’t appear to be a definitive connection.