Buy toilet paper, save the planet – 26 February 2008

Procter & Gamble has evidence to back up its green claims, which are bigger toilet paper rolls mean less packaging and waste and cold-water detergent saves energy and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Its biggest environmental breakthrough is probably Tide Coldwater. The impact of washing clothes in cold water is not trivial. If every U.S. household used cold water for laundry, the energy savings would be 70 to 90 billion kilowatt hours per year, which is 3% of the nation's total household energy consumption. These savings would translate into 34 million tons of carbon dioxide per year not released into the environment, which is nearly 8% of the Kyoto target for the United States. Switching to oversized rolls of bathroom tissue or paper towels can also have big impact. According to P&G, if 1 million consumers switched from Regular Charmin to Charmin Mega, it would save 85,000 gallons of diesel fuel and 500,000 pounds of trash per year because the MegaRolls need fewer cardboard cores per sheet of tissue. Interestingly, that's not how the MegaRolls are sold to consumers. Similarly, Tide Coldwater is marketed as a way for consumers to save money and improve fabric care, and not for its environmental benefits.