Bamboo vs recycled: which toilet paper is more sustainable
Cheeky Panda Bamboo Carbon Footprint results just in!
Ali vs Frazer. Federer vs Nadal. Noel vs Liam. And NOW the biggest of them all… Bamboo vs Recycled toilet paper vs virgin tree. Which offers us the most sustainable solution for toilet roll? 
At Cheeky Panda HQ, we’ve teamed up with Carbon Footprint Ltd to take a deep dive into the carbon emissions from our bamboo toilet paper’s journey—from the bamboo forests to your bathroom! By conducting a Life Cycle Assessment, we’re able to track every step of our product’s impact, helping us cut down emissions and better understand just how awesome bamboo is as a sustainable, eco-friendly resource.
In Carbon Footprint’s report, they also compared the carbon emissions of Cheeky Panda Bamboo toilet rolls to those made of recycled or virgin wood. What the report found is that choosing our cheeky bamboo toilet paper reflected 45% less life cycle carbon emissions compared to the global average for recycled paper, and 24% less than the global average for virgin tree-based paper!
So what does that mean ? To put the benefit of Cheeky Bamboo Bamboo toilet paper into context; for a family of 4 changing your toilet roll from recycled paper to Cheeky Panda Bamboo toilet roll for a year is the equivalent of 145 minutes of social media each day or a bottle of Italian wine a week. So making the switch can help you save 74kg of CO2 emissions for the planet or help you offset some of your favourite pastimes! What a win!
Stacked up, roll after roll, this shows how much carbon bamboo can save us from putting into the atmosphere! But why we hear you all asking? Well let’s dive in to the science!
Check out the table below to see the Cradle to Gate comparison between The Cheeky Panda’s bamboo toilet paper vs toilet paper made from recycled material and toilet paper made from virgin wood pulp. The comparison products have been modelled to the same weight as the bamboo toilet paper (140g) keep things fair. Overall, Cheeky Panda's bamboo toilet paper has the lowest total carbon footprint (177g CO2e) per 140g roll. This is significantly lower than both typical recycled (322gCO2e ) and virgin wood toilet paper (245gCO2e ). Plus, these results don’t account for the natural carbon sequestering properties of our good friend the bamboo plant (+30% more than trees!) which could potentially reduce emissions even further.
Table 4. Cradle to gate emissions comparison of Cheeky Panda's bamboo toilet paper against industry average (packaging included)
What the report found was that the carbon emissions associated with taking the Bamboo from forest to pulp has a lot less impact than recycled and virgin toilet paper. Its cultivation has a low carbon intensity and it travels a short distance (5km) from the forest to the factory.
We make sure our processing plants are right next to where our bamboo is grown to keep our raw material transportation emissions low. Bamboo grows naturally in abundance in tropical locations around the world, China being where the biggest natural forests are located. Instead of trying to relocate these natural forests closer to the UK, which would involve clearing land, changing existing habitats and introducing foreign species, we believe in harnessing the planet’s natural resources where they lie. That’s why we source our bamboo from China, where it naturally grows, from FSC certified sustainable forests.
Now from there, we know you may be raising your eyebrows, China isn’t exactly down the street. We understand. While sourcing from here does mean the product distribution emissions of the Cheeky Panda’s bamboo toilet paper are greater than the comparison products, this has a minimal impact on the toilet paper’s overall emissions.
What drives up the emissions for recycled paper are the energy-intensive de-inking process required to clean used paper so it is safe to use. This process, which follows mechanical pulping, consumes more energy and chemicals compared to the production of toilet paper from virgin wood or bamboo. This has led to BPA and PFAS being found in recycled tissue which can be harmful to humans and water systems when flushed down the toilet.
Now obviously no reporting method is perfect, which is why we are using publicly available global average manufacturing methods for both recycled & virgin paper production as a benchmark. This means that these emissions might not represent ALL manufacturers in ALL places, but is a benchmark. Our primary goal is to understand how our bamboo TP performs, and so far we can say we are happy with the result (45% less emissions is a pretty great result!). However, sustainability is a journey, and we want to understand the full picture, including the ‘upstream’ benefits of using bamboo (things like the fact it sucks in so much CO2 and pumps out loads of oxygen). So our next step is to continue to research Bamboos upstream environmental benefits for the planet.
So, there you have it – our round up of the sustainable toilet paper face off bamboo vs recycled vs virgin tree. As customers, we have a wide range of options open to us now, and that is great! But sometimes it’s worth digging a bit deeper into these ‘eco-friendly’ options, to decide for ourselves which one really is making a difference.
References
Carbon footprint Ltd, September 2024, Toilet Tissue LCA Report, Cradle to Gate to enable comparison across human activity
Tree Hugger, Eco-Friendly Toilet Paper: Bamboo vs Recycled
The World Counts, Environmental Impact of Toilet Paper
Greenspector, What is the environmental footprint for social media applications? 2021 edition
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