There aren’t that many things that I truly despise. The sound of wind on Instagram stories, black olives, and United Airlines are all top contenders. But there’s nothing I hate more than bathroom humor, or ever talking about anything that goes on in the bathroom. I’m not sure why I have an aversion to the topic - maybe it’s growing up without brothers - but it is what it is. All this to say it pains me to cover this next topic, but my job is to bring you unbiased sustainability news and that’s what I will do. This week’s topic: Bidets versus Toilet Paper.
Bidet is a French word for pony, because you’re meant to “ride” a bidet much like a pony is ridden. Bidets are common in many places throughout the world, though they haven’t yet gained serious traction in the United States. Throughout the bidet boom in the 1800s when the trend was growing throughout Western Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia, the United States resisted. Americans were introduced to bidets at large in World War II. GIs would see bidets in the bathrooms of brothels and began to associate them with sex work. When the men returned, they felt squeamish presenting them at home. Furthermore, bidets were also used for menstruation and contraception and thus were shunned from America’s puritanical roots. There’s a lot that happened between then and now, so feel free to take a deep dive into its fascinating history.
Miki Agrawal thinks that Bidets can make a comeback in the US and founded Tushy, “the modern bidet that saves your ass, saves your money, saves the planet and saves the world.” Avoiding euphemisms and getting straight to the point, Tushy boasts it’s “for people who poop.” I started thinking about how much money (or trees) we could collectively save if we switched to bidets. Plus, and I’m only speaking for myself here, but watching ToiletGate 2020 in the beginning of March felt like a horror version of Supermarket Sweep…something I’d love to avoid in the future.
In the use phase, the argument is just about as complicated for the average person as Zoom is for Octogenarians in the time of Covid-19.
Americans account for 4% of the worlds’ butts, but the amount of toilet paper we collectively consume each year equals the weight of 30,000 blue whales, or 450 Eiffel Towers. Ouch.
It takes 15 million trees to make toilet paper annually, and many less to make a bidet. If lumberjacks were marching into natural forests solely for Charmin, this would be unacceptable. In reality, most tissue-grade paper is made from leftover scraps of timber or sawdust from other purposes. Using less paper is objectively a good thing (there are still fossil fuels and wildlife destruction to consider) but virgin toilet paper doesn’t exactly equate to a FernGully-style emergency. Further, often after using a bidet, users often reach for the toilet paper to dry off, so we’re back at square one.
The real impact is in the water. It takes 437 billion gallons of water and 253,000 tons of bleach to make toilet paper. The average American uses 57 sheets of toilet paper on an average day. With a bidet, the use in a week 1.3 gallons of water. Because paper making is incredibly water-intensive, toilet paper uses 55.5 gallons (just 37 gallons of water to make 1 roll!).
Use phase is just one aspect, though, and the production of toilet paper versus a bidet is also necessary to consider. I asked Tushy to share any environmental analysis they had done for the impact of making one bidet versus toilet paper, and it still comes out on top. One bidet is 5.4kg of CO2e, and toilet paper’s annual use is 50 kg of CO2e. This means a family could buy 9 bidets and still have less of an impact than toilet paper. There are other aspects to consider like shipping or wasteful packaging, but all things considered those factors are negligible.
Safe to say the bidet is a far superior choice for sustainable practices. Save money, save the planet. No Ifs, Ands or Butts.
Try out Tushy here. If you’re only ready to dip your toe in the toilet bowl, check out the best toilet paper, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.