Don’t flush trees down the toilet. Please use this toilet paper instead.

Shelley Vinyard, who oversees the Natural Resources Defense Council’s corporate campaign to protect Canada’s boreal forests, said it’s just an incredibly important ecosystem that’s literally being flushed down the toilet.

NRDC ranks dozens of toilet paper brands each year on their sustainability status. We tested some of the top-scoring products for softness, strength, and absorbency and found they varied greatly. (See method below.)

winner:Simple Facts (Kroger)

Our winners are made from 100% recycled paper, which contains up to 60% post-consumer recycled content, or materials that would normally be recycled or end up in landfills.

Our testers gave Simple Truth an average score of 5.5 out of 10.

How does it perform compared to traditional toilet paper rolls? Not that good. Our testers gave Charmin, one of the best-selling brands in the United States, an average score of 9.8.

But depending on how and where they come from, in many cases the softest toilet paper Some experts believe this may be the most unsustainable. They are often made from virgin forest fibers such as northern bleached softwood kraft fiber and Brazilian eucalyptus. The thin walls of these fibers make them more flexible and make the tissue soft. While Brazilian eucalyptus is a fast-growing tree that is often considered a more sustainable source of virgin fiber, soft toilet paper also often contains fiber from older trees that store large amounts of carbon.

All toilet paper products that receive an NRDC Sustainability Rating of F are mostly, if not entirely, made from forest fibers. Toilet paper made from 100% recycled material received high ratings from the group. For example, simple truths get an A.

Linda Walker, senior director of corporate engagement at World Forestry, said ensuring post-consumer waste is recycled and reused as many times as possible is crucial to reducing demand on natural resources and preventing water, air and waste from entering landfills. Pollution is critical.

winner: Rolling paper (100% bamboo)

A wet three-ply toilet paper roll can hold about eight quarters on average, twice as much as the No. 2 Whole Foods 365 toilet paper (double-ply).

Richard Venditti, a professor of paper science and engineering at North Carolina State University, said that like virgin hardwood, bamboo tends to have long fibers that are easier to bond to form a stronger board.

But bamboo may not be as environmentally friendly as U.S. recycled paper. Much of the bamboo comes from China, which still relies heavily on coal for fuel, Venditti said. A lot of people think, oh, this is bamboo. “We don’t have to cut down a single tree, so it’s good for the environment, but that’s not all,” he said.

Our strength test winner earned a B rating from NRDC, lower than many toilet paper rolls made from recycled materials. Still, some experts say bamboo-based products can be better alternatives to virgin fibers from mature or old trees if they are mostly, if not entirely, made from responsibly sourced bamboo.

While the impact of bamboo is not as high as that of post-consumer recycled products or alternative fibers derived from agricultural residues such as hemp, jute, rice straw and wheat straw, bamboo (a type of grass) grows much faster than most trees.

Which one is more absorbent?

winner: Whole Foods and Everspring (tied)

Whole Foods and Everspring, both made from 100% recycled materials, tied in this test. For both brands, 0.5 ml of liquid dropped on the toilet paper went through an average of about eight sheets of toilet paper.

Recycled fibers are usually harder and contain more Burak Aksoy, an associate research professor in Auburn University’s School of Forestry, Wildlife and the Environment, said paper produced using small fibers is less soft and less absorbent than virgin fibers. But Aksoy added that the properties of recycled toilet paper, including its absorbency, could be improved through advanced drying methods, layering and embossing.

NRDC gave our leader an A+ (whole foods) and an A (Changchun). The organization says it gives higher grades to products with higher levels of post-consumer recycled content. Other recycled toilet paper may contain manufacturing waste that doesn’t make it to store shelves.

Toilet paper rolls, a type of toilet paper made from bamboo, triumphed. It scored highest for strength, and most of our testers gave it a middle-of-the-road softness score. However, as we mentioned above, it ranks less favorably than some of our other sustainability papers according to the NRDC Scorecard.

Experts say if you choose bamboo toilet paper, make sure your product is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.

No matter which toilet paper you choose, there are likely to be trade-offs when it comes to sustainability. For example, except for Reel, which is packaged in recyclable paper and comes in a cardboard box, all other brands we tested were packaged in plastic. (Some other eco-friendly brands, like Who Gives a Crap, also avoid plastic packaging.) What’s more, producing certain types of toilet paper releases fewer carbon emissions but may harm the environment in other ways, such as if fertilizers Water used to grow crops eventually pollutes nearby waterways.

Of course, there are other factors to consider when choosing toilet paper, such as cost. Our winner isn’t the cheapest, with 12 jumbo rolls costing $27.99 (or about $2.30 per roll), according to the Reels website. Bamboo toilet paper can be purchased at lower prices at some stores, such as Target. Trader Joes has the lowest prices at about 40 cents per roll ($4.99 for 12 rolls).

How we test:

We tested six types of eco-friendly paper. Our selections are based on the Natural Resources Defense Council’s annual scorecard, which rates dozens of widely used brands. These grades are based on a variety of factors, including what the roll is made of, how it’s processed and whether it has sustainability certification or whether the company behind it has committed to avoiding sourcing from virgin forests.

The six brands we chose to test had scores of B or higher and were also among the best-selling brands in the U.S., according to Chicago-based market research firm Circana. November 2023 year.

Products tested included toilet paper made from 100% recycled materials (all awarded grades A+ and A) and a blend of bamboo fibers (grade B). We also tested Charmin, one of the leading brands in the U.S. according to Circana, which earned an F score from NRDC.

Our series of experiments involves the following:

Strength Test Pull a piece of toilet paper over the mouth of a glass jar, wet the paper and pile a quarter of the paper on top until the paper tears;

Water absorption test, wet 10 folded papers with colored water and count how many layers the liquid has passed;

For the softness test, we asked four colleagues to perform a blind touch test and rate toilet paper samples out of 10.

We conducted four strength and absorbency tests and averaged the results.