The Bs Are Back

The carpenter bees arrived for their annual feast of my front porch a few weeks ago. I don’t

mind them. Sure, the bees have some baggage. They make a big mess digging their holes. The little sawdust piles mix with the pollen, making my porch pretty nasty. But, they’re not the world’s worst house guests. For starters, they remind me that spring has arrived.

Say it isn’t so – I’m a tree killer

squeeze = trees

Everyone knows that UK toilet paper sucks. Not only does it feel like sandpaper but it comes in colors never-found-in-nature.  Think easter egg shades of light pink, green and blue. I always feared that the dye was cancer causing.

I’m a charmin girl. And never the ‘good value’ charmin – only the ultra soft, quilted, extra ply will do. When I lived in the UK, I’d smuggle back suitcases full of charmin.

So, I was crushed to see a recent article in the Guardian that American style toilet paper is tres bad for the environment. Somehow my beloved extra soft Charmin:

causes more damage than gas-guzzlers, fast food or McMansions

The problem is two fold – it’s made from extra virgin wood and the chemicals used in pulp manufacturing are harmful. Americans are big toilet paper consumers, using

three times more per person than the average European, and 100 times more than the average person in China.

The article links to the Greenpeace cut-out-and-keep ecological ranking of toilet paper products.

Unless I change my ways – I’ll be a big tree-hugging hypocrite – a modern day version of Mr Whipple.