A quick break from Greenfestiness too address the media frenzy around Sheryl Crow. Apparently Ms. Crow has gone insane! She wants us to use only one square of toilet paper per trip! Madness! How utterly uncivilized, no one in the world would do something so crazy.

Except about 75% of the people in the world use no toilet paper, and when you consider the average American uses “over
100 single rolls—about 21,000 sheets—each year,” the waste of our waste begins to seem like a pretty big deal.

I have to admit, when I first read that No Impact Man was going to toss the tissue, I had a cultural doh! moment. Ok, no TP=less waste, got it, but uhhhhh . . . how??

The how has been a question faced by many travelers and is addressed by Dr. Jane Wilson-Howarth in How to Shit Around the World, which I’ve added to the reading list! For more details on the exact details on the how, check out World Hum. Before you get too grossed out, according to Wilson-Howarth the hand method is actually more sanitary

“You get good bacteriological cleaning with just rubbing your hands together with soap under running water four times,” she says, and cites a study which says you don’t even need soap. “It can be ash or mud, just rubbing your hands together under water with some kind of washing agent. Even dirt from the river bank will give you good bacteriological cleaning.”

Many commenters at No Impact have experience with this method, finding plain tp to be less refreshing and clean. Read more…

Ok, sometimes mushing words can end up with leaving an unpleasant image! But the good news is Hogwarts has gone green!

I am a very big Harry Potter fan, and with the last book in the series due out this summer it’s great to hear that Scholastic is taking a more environmentally friendly approach for the US release. The US has fallen behind in this effort, as some previous Canada & European versions were printed on forest friendly paper, per the author’s wishes.

For the US release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Scholastic has teamed with the Rainforest Alliance for a more responsible press run. Some of the details are:

* The paper used will contain “a minimum of 30 percent post-consumer waste (pcw) fiber.”

* Nearly two-thirds of the 16,700 tons of paper will be approved by the Forest Stewardship Council, an international organization with a mission to “promote environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests.”

* A “deluxe” edition of the new book, which has a first printing of 100,000, will be printed on paper that contains “100 percent post-consumer waste fiber.”

Considering the first printing will run in the realm of 12 million copies, this is certainly a step in the right direction. It is unfortunate that only the deluxe edition will contain 100% recycled materials, as it seems they could feasibly offer this as an option for all copies. To put in perspective, the earth savings for using the greenest production methods and 100% recycled paper for 2.5 million copies would be about:

• 89,200 trees felled
• Enough water used to fill 105 Olympic-sized pools
• Production of greenhouse gases equivalent a car being driven 8m miles
• Electricity to power an average home for 610 years

Of course, the best way to reduce waste is to check it out from your local library, but if you can not resist the temptation to get your own copy be sure to become your own library and get some more people hooked on Potter-mania!