The environmental case for bidets

In bathrooms throughout the United States, bidets are gaining in popularity. Perhaps it’s because people prefer the more refreshing clean of a bidet over toilet paper. Or maybe it’s because they find bidets are better for backside hygiene, including easing the pain of hemorrhoids and rashes. These are both great reasons to introduce a bidet into your daily life. Yet there’s another reason still: bidets are good for the environment.

Less toilet paper, more trees

Most of us know that toilet paper is made from trees. But did you know that commonly-used soft, plush toilet paper is especially hard on forests? Also, sometimes the trees are harvested from single species tree farms in North and South America. These farms can create challenges to regional biodiversity. Or worse, the toilet paper may be sourced from older growth forests.

111 rolls per person, per year

Every day, the amount of toilet paper that people use around the world is equivalent to 27,000 trees. In the United States alone, Americans use 36.5 billion rolls every year. This is approximately 111 rolls of paper, per person, annually. On a daily basis, that’s about a third of a roll. At the current volume, it takes 15 million trees to supply Americans’ TP needs each year.

Bidets save water

It may be surprising that a bidet—a product that uses water to clean after toileting—saves water. But it’s true. This is mostly because the process of making toilet paper is very water-intensive. According to Justin Thomas, editor of Metaefficient, creating toilet paper for the American market “...involves 473,587,500,000 gallons of water to produce the paper and 253,000 tons of chlorine for bleaching.”That’s up to 37 gallons of water for just one roll!

Also, a single toilet flush sends 1.6 to 7 gallons of water into the sewer system. (Older toilets are on the higher end of this spectrum.) In contrast, a bidet only uses about 1/8 of a gallon of water per cleansing.

Bathroom habits in your home can become more environmentally friendly with the Coway Bidetmega 200. It’s easy to replace a standard toilet seat with the Coway Bidetmega 200 by using tools that most people have around the house. Once the bidet is installed, you can adjust the water pressure and temperature with the touch of a button for a satisfying clean.