You may have passed it in the aisle at your local grocery store or convenience store. When you hear it at first, [recycled toilet paper" or [ recycled paper towel", it sounds a little gross. Fortunately, recycled toilet paper isn't actually made from unused, regular toilet paper, but is actually made from other recycled paper such as office paper.
What is Recycled Toilet Paper?
A lot of people are interested in recycled toilet paper because they perceive it as a more eco-friendly option than a regular roll. But what exactly is it? Doesn`t the whole concept sound a little, icky? Does it contain old bathroom tissue that someone has already used to wipe their bottom!?
Fortunately, there`s no need to worry about that. It turns out that toilet tissue is the final possible use of the fiber used in paper products and is generally not recyclable. This means that recycled toilet paper does not actually contain any previously used toilet tissue, but is instead made from other recycled materials. These recycled materials will either be post-consumer materials or pre-consumer ones.
Post-Consumer Materials
These are materials that are reuesed after serving their initial consumer-related purpose, as opposed to being thrown in the trash. Post-consumer materials commonly present in recycled toilet paper would include recycled paper products like books, newspapers, magazines, etc. So who knows, maybe recycled toilet paper can make us smarter!
Pre-Consumer Materials
Also referred to as manufacturing waste, pre-consumer recycled materials are leftover materials that have not yet been `consumed` by an end-user. Pre-consumer materials present in recycled toilet paper might include trimmings and scraps from wood manufacturing, wood from landfills, or previously manufactured paper products that have gone unused.
If you`re browsing through different toilet paper brands at the grocery store, it`s likely you will find recycled toilet paper made entirely from post-consumer materials, entirely from pre-consumer materials, or even a mix of both. It`s also possible to find products that contain a mix of recycled fiber and virgin fiber, meaning they are only partially made from recycled materials.
How is Recycled Toilet Paper Made?
While manufacturing virgin toilet paper involves first cutting down trees, turning the logs into wood chips, and processing the wood chips into virgin wood pulp, the initial process of making recycled toilet paper is a tree-free one.
To make recycled toilet paper, instead of chopping up our precious trees and forests, pre-consumer or post-consumer paper materials are gathered up and put into a pulping machine or `pulper.` This machine mixes the paper with detergents and warm water to turn it into a pulp, or a `slurry.` This recycled pulp is then rinsed and screened to remove paper coatings and inks, and the pulp is usually then whitened and sanitized using oxygen, ozone, and hydrogen peroxide.
From this point on, the process of making recycled toilet paper is the same as that of virgin toilet paper production. At this stage, either the virgin pulp or the recycled pulp is mixed with water again to produce a paper stock, which is then sprayed, dried, and `creped` to make it soft. The toilet paper is then rolled up, and packaged for our consumption!