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…