Cheeky Panda celebrates toilet paper's 65% smaller carbon footprint, compared to supermarket equivalents, in time for World Toilet Day on 19th November
London, UK (PRWEB UK) 8 November 2016 -- The world presents increasingly extreme weather patterns and ever scarcer resources. Against this backdrop, it takes innovative entrepreneurs to find solutions between consumer needs, and the needs of the environment – and there may be no taller a challenge than decreasing the 27,000 trees lost every day to toilet paper production (http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2010/04/16/27000_trees_a_day_used_for_toilet_tissue/). Contributing toward this challenge is Chris Forbes & Julie Chen, who’ve turned bamboo into toilet tissue.
Chris says, “We all care about the planet – however people don’t want to sacrifice on quality. What we’ve achieved is an affordable, high quality low carbon eco product that doesn’t cost the earth.”
If the current rate of deforestation continues, it will take less than 100 years to destroy all the rainforests on the earth (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/). On top of this the World Resources Institute calculates that the “loss of forests contributes between 12 to 17 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions”. The problem couldn’t be clearer – and given that bamboo is the world’s fastest growing plant - growing by up to 1 meter a day, it serves as a clear and compelling alternative to trees for toilet tissue. Further underlining this solution is the fact that bamboo also absorbs up to 35% more carbon, and produces 30% more oxygen, as compared to trees.
The Cheeky Panda commissioned the Carbon Footprint Company to produce a complete cradle to grave report on the production, farming, pulping, manufacturing, distribution and end of life carbon cycle of Bamboo.
The report illustrates bamboo as a highly sustainable raw material and puts figures behind Cheeky Panda as a tissue paper with a significantly smaller carbon footprint as compared to supermarket equivalents; their paper is 31.0% lower (0.31 gCO2e) when compared to recycled toilet tissue and 65.5% lower (1.31 gCO2e) when compared to virgin source tissue.
These figures take into account the importation of the respective materials – be this Cheeky Panda bamboo, or the trees of the supermarket equivalents; Cheeky Panda rolls are also packaged more tightly than normal toilet rolls, which further helps reduce the amount of transport carbon.
The production of Cheeky Panda additionally circumvents the carbon intensive de-inking and bleaching agents required in recycled paper products – processes which, in themselves, are harmful to the environment.
Julie notes that “it’s not just about creating a green product, it’s also how it’s received by the market” and despite only starting up in January 2016, the company has already been nominated for several awards and has 5 out of 5* reviews on Amazon.
Julie goes on to talk about their product’s qualities beyond sustainability: “We wanted to make sustainability fun, it’s not just about creating something new, it’s also about making a high quality product that on its own would sell well anyway. Bamboo contains an antimicrobial bio-agent called ‘bamboo kun’ (https://thegreenlivingcenter.com/node/137). This ‘Kun’ helps to reduce bacteria that thrive on the tissue itself and human skin. Tree-based or recycled toilet paper does not have anything like this. Our 100% bamboo tissue is pure, natural and kind to skin.”
Chris added, “We’ve knocked the ball out of the park on so many different levels – we’re the only 100% FSC bamboo tissue product in the UK and we’ve created a low carbon, sustainable product with luxury quality, at affordable prices.”
Cheeky Panda products are available on Amazon.co.uk, ethicalsuperstore.com and are being stocked by selected organic/health stores such as As Nature Intended. The product has also been adopted by leading city law firms and boutique hotels in London, as well as several Beauty Salons and Spas. Julie Chen added: “Businesses who adopt our product demonstrate that they genuinely care for the environment, for their employees and for their customers”.
Julie Chen, The cheeky Panda, +44 2071902970, [email protected]
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