You know what I love? Discovering single actions that when adopted by the masses make a whopping difference for virtually no effort at all. Know what I love even more? When major publications like Time Magazine devote their coveted print and web space to promoting said actions.

For instance, Time Magazine published the following article about why everyone should switch to using 100% recycled toilet paper. It’s easy and thousands of trees will be saved from a dirty single-use future. This idea is certainly not new to me, and I’m guessing it’s old hat for the majority of folks who follow Raising Spaces. But according to this article, recycled toilet paper accounts for a piddly 2% of the US market!

Although we Canadians like to tell ourselves that we’re different from Americans, somehow greener, the sad truth is that the US is leagues ahead of Canada in most matters of sustainability. Chances are, a good majority of us have yet to switch over. Here are writer Bryan Walsh’s wise words on going recycled in the bathroom.

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No matter how green you think you are, there’s probably one hallowed place where concern for the environment doesn’t even enter your mind: the bathroom. It’s almost certain that the roll of toilet paper you’re using is made not of recycled fiber but from felled trees ? often from North America’s virgin forests, which are as rare as they are rich in wildlife.

“The paper industry is the No. 1 industrial pressure on forests,” says Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “Using toilet paper made from virgin trees is the paper-industry equivalent of driving a Hummer.”

Americans don’t need to use an SUV every time they go to the bathroom. Which helps explain why this spring a mainstream brand, Scott, started offering toilet paper made with 40% recycled fiber. Switching to such material could
make a big difference: the NRDC estimates that if every household in the U.S. replaced just one 500-sheet roll of virgin-fiber TP a year with a roll made from 100% recycled paper, nearly 425,000 trees would be saved annually.

Read the full article.