I believe most of you carry a handkerchief in your pocket daily. You use it only when you don't find a tissue easily. So, in fact you carry this small napkin in your pocket as a habit. And still this is given for a wash the next morning, though you may not have used it at all.
Some upper income group people spend a lot of money to buy the best handkerchiefs and they must be the ones who must be using this, the least. For them using of paper tissues is a must – be it in the car, in the washroom or drawing room or bedroom. One would find stylish exclusive cases to hold the paper tissue card boxes. And they will have exclusive designer paper napkins.
Last few months a number of videos have become viral on the social media highlighting how the use of paper napkins or tissue as they are commonly called, are a major reason for the felling of trees. On one hand we are propagating to plant trees to save the environment and on the other side we are destroying trees by using more and more of paper napkins.
According to one such viral video it says that globally we are cutting 27,000 trees daily to manufacture the tissue papers, though I believe this figure would be much higher actually. It is also said that on an average out of the total office waste collected daily, 20 percent is that of tissue papers. Making of paper napkins also uses a lot of water and releases greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. According to one report to produce 1000 kg of paper 17 trees have to be cut. Another report says that to manufacture one kg of paper some 10 to 25 litres of water is used by very efficient plants in North America. Also to be noted is an important point that for making of soft tissues only virgin fiber is used which comes from freshly cut trees. These soft tissues can not be made from recycled paper.
At few places it may be essential to use paper napkins but at most places this can be easily avoided. When we wash our hands we can surely use our handkerchiefs or small towels, which can be washed. One can find many such uses where alternatives can be found, if we keep in mind that to leave a better world for our coming generations we have to take all steps to save trees today.
One may argue that washing of cotton napkins would need so much of water which is also scarce. But comparatively speaking this is surely a better option. We must also note that as pointed out very initially, we give our pocket handkerchiefs for a wash every day even if we have not used it at all. Washing of these unused napkins and wasting water and soap is a criminal wastage.
These data of how many trees are cut or how much water is used to manufacture 1000 kgs of napkins may not be exact, or may be very much off the mark, but the fact remains we can avoid the destruction of environment for a better tomorrow.
Make good use of your handkerchief.
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