Capitalism is wiping up...

[Chris James]

Perhaps this isn't funny to you, but it is a sign of the times.

I went to the market the other day and like most folks I had to purchase toilet tissue. I like to buy things that are environmentally friendly, but it is damn near impossible to find recycled toilet paper.

Now wait, before that thought upsets your stomach, I don't mean used toilet paper being recycled but a product made from other kinds of paper. I know when I read about the nonsense in Congress these days I am tempted to wipe my rear end with the front page of the newspaper, and there is a way to do just that.

I read some years ago about several cities in Japan where recycling provides a variety of products for home consumption. In a land of millions and very little space to toss the trash the Japanese take their recycling seriously.

It seems these cities require the residents to separate the bottles and cans, but also the paper. Trucks come around and collect the material and whisk it off to modern processing plants. Okay, you say, many cities do that and we do it here. But in Japan the recycling trucks leave something important behind in each recycle bin, a fresh supply of toilet paper.

This is made by processing the old newspaper and cardboard which is washed, pulped and run through the machines to make the thin sheets of toilet paper. Pretty damn clever and the residents get a return for their taxes. The recycled paper breaks down in sewage processing a lot better than manufactured new toilet paper does, two plusses for the environment

.

So here I am in the market and, damn, there are 28 different varieties of toilet paper offered, but none of them made with recycled paper. Perhaps the overly spoiled bottoms of capitalism demand softer, quilted or otherwise fluffed paper. Tell that to the trees we kill. When they are gone we will be back to wiping with...uh, what?

Okay, not too funny, but I did get in my environmental rant for the day.

[Gee Whillickers]

I remember reading on article on this topic a year or so ago. In North America at least, the problem with recycled paper being used in the manufacture of toilet paper is that, on the open market, people won't buy it. It turns out that TP made from recycled materials doesn't have that thick, soft, fluffy feel that consumers demand. When there was recycled paper TP available, it didn't sell. So supermarkets et al stopped carrying it. I guess we're all a bunch of spoiled butts here. Not to mention, when the hell will we see bidets installed as S.O.P.?

[Merkin]

When I was a child I lived on a family farm with an outhouse, and we engaged in a primitive form of recycling by using old Sears catalogs and other salvaged paper for our wipe, as well as fresh corn husks (not corncobs, despite the stereotype, but just as nasty). I believe I've paid forward enough to have earned the privilege of buying quilted, fluffy, multi-thickness toilet paper which I can now even flush with the push of a lever, imagine that.

James

[Lugnutz]

People want fluffy stuff to wipe their irritated bum. Give me 2 ply of something and I'm happy, at least until I find something else to whine about.

[Chris James]

Okay now here is someone who needs the softest tissue available...can you imagine this horror:

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/22/8957008-botched-buttock-pumping-new-allegations-emerge

[Lugnutz]

Baby got back? I've seen pics. Looked like he/she was caught in a inner tube.

[The Pecman]

The "natural" food markets do sell recycled toilet paper, paper towels, and stuff like that. It's the same price as the regular stuff.

I worked on a documentary years ago that said that colored toilet paper (especially the perfumed kind) is particularly bad for the environment. The "right" kind of toilet paper breaks down pretty quickly in water. After that, I always went for Charmin -- nothing but the best for... uh, me.

[TracyMN]

Seeing "Capitalism" in a subject line is like Christmas for me, and there is always hope in my heart that inside there will be another fanatic who can connect those devils to every evil under the sun. As long as there's a Santa, there's hope.

What better to illustrate the form, function, application, operation, and impact of Capitalism than the horses it rides in on? And there will always be one brand that serves the particular purpose best--Charmin is my TP representative, for reasons almost identical to those that make it America's favorite and for that fact as well.

Certainly a gentleman's rant, Chris, think a girl could learn to to that? <g>

Tracy