Kleercut.Net Kimberly-Clark and Kleenex are wiping away ancient forests

Earlier this year we introduced the Greenpeace Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide and the popularity of the guide inspired us to make an iPhone, Android, and mobile version.

Our new iPhone application can be downloaded from iTunes or the Android market or you can view the guide on your mobile phone at www.3rdwhale.com/greenpeace/wap. The tool created by 3rd Whale, gives consumers a quick and easy way to choose the greenest toilet paper, tissues, paper towels, and paper napkins sold at US supermarkets. For people interested in protecting ancient forests from clearcutting and supporting truly sustainable companies, this application makes informed decision making easy.

A couple weeks ago, Greenpeace released a video called“What's inside your box of Kleenex?” As the largest tissue company in the world, Kimberly-Clark doesn't have a policy for using recycled content in their consumer paper products, which include Kleenex, Scott, Cottonelle, and Viva. Worse yet, the company also sources some of its wood pulp from virgin forest, including some of the last remaining ancient Boreal forests in North America. That’s the dirty secret about what’s inside every box of Kleenex: ancient forests.

Kimberly-Clark has launched a big marketing campaign to try and tell consumers that it "Feels good to feel" their tissues. But with virgin forest in every box, Kleenex comes with more than a feeling.

Check out the video we made to get the word out:

In February we released the Greenpeace Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide and the story traveled the globe in The New York Times, The Guardian, The International Herald Tribune, and hundreds of other media outlets.

One of the questions that we were asked time and again was, "Do my tissue and toilet paper purchases really make a difference?"

The answer is YES, but don't take our word for it. Here is what is in your box of Kleenex...

Earth School kids send a video message to Kimberly-Clark.

Students from a New York school learned about the Kleercut campaign—the forest, habitat, and ecosystem destruction caused by Kleenex brand and parent-company Kimberly-Clark—and took matters into their own hands. They conducted their own research on alternative tissue brands and implemented the “Kleenex-free policy” at their school. Taking their campaign a step further, the students, their teacher, and a parent, created a video about what they do at their school—ride the Pedal-A-Watt bike to generate electricity, ride the see-saw pump to water the garden, and compost kitchen scraps—and what they do not do at their school—Use Kleenex!

Wasteful Use of Ancient Forests for Kleenex Covered in the New York Times, The Guardian, Fast Company and Other Major Outlets.

Here's a sampling of quotes from the stories, to read our full response to these articles and for an in depth look at Kimberly-Clark's misleading statements take a look at our blog post Destroying forests to make toilet paper is “worse than driving Hummers”.

Mr. Whipple Left It Out: Soft Is Rough on Forests

"...fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and Latin American countries, including some percentages of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them."

"Greenpeace on Monday for the first time issued a national guide for American consumers that rates toilet tissue brands on their environmental soundness. With the recession pushing the price for recycled paper down and Americans showing more willingness to repurpose everything from clothing to tires, environmental groups want more people to switch to recycled toilet tissue."

"'No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper,' said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defense Council."

American taste for soft toilet roll 'worse than driving Hummers'

"A campaign by Greenpeace seeks to raise consciousness among Americans about the environmental costs of their toilet habits and counter an aggressive new push by the paper industry giants to market so-called luxury brands."

"Reuters reported that Kimberly-Clark spent $25m in its third quarter on advertising to persuade Americans against trusting their bottoms to cheaper brands."

Green Toilet Paper Buying Guide: Be Kind to Your Behind vs. Hug a Tree?

"It’s common to frame environmental dilemmas moralistically, as small, personal choices where we all should try to do the right thing, even if it makes us a little uncomfortable. But maybe the tissue issue is really a matter of pressuring businesses to innovate and do a better job marketing products that are better for the planet."

Avoid Kleenex, Viva, Scott, Cottonelle, and others

Americans could save more than 400,000 trees if each family bought a roll of recycled toilet paper—just once. Recycled tissue products help protect ancient forests, clean water, and wildlife habitat and yet some companies still make products with no recycled content.

Tissue products are used once and then thrown or flushed away. Buying products made with post-consumer recycled content that have not been bleached with chlorine compounds reduces our impact on ancient forests and the broader environment.

Greenpeace surveyed companies that make toilet paper, facial tissue, paper towels, and paper napkins available to US consumers to find out which of the products met our criteria. Visit our online version of the guide or read on to learn more about the criteria used to compare products.

Flip through the full Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide

OREN publishes website documenting their victory

How do you stop Kimberly-Clark from turning valuable native forests into Kleenex? Just take a look at this new website from Otway Ranges Environment Network (OREN). The site provides an historical overview of this landmark campaign to protect the Otway forests, in Victoria, Australia.

From 1995-2008 the “refuse to use Kleenex tissues” campaign fought to save the Otway forests from becoming woodchips for Kimberly-Clark toilet paper and tissues. Through OREN’s perseverance, consumer awareness activities, and the support of communities and area residents, the campaign led to the protection of the Otway forests within the Great Otway National Park. The campaign’s final victory has ensured that clearfell logging and woodchipping of all native forest on public land in the Otways is banned and illegal.

Logging in Canada's Boreal Forest is exacerbating global warming by releasing greenhouse gases and reducing carbon storage, says a new Greenpeace report released today. It also makes the forest more susceptible to global warming impacts like wildfires and insect outbreaks, which in turn release more greenhouse gases. If this vicious circle is left unchecked, it could culminate in a massive and sudden release of greenhouse gases referred to as "the carbon bomb," the report warns.

Download the full report