Bidets Save Trees and Water Resources
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are rushing to stock up on the essentials — and especially on toilet paper. Demand has become so high that some stores have completely run out of stock, and others are limiting how many rolls each customer can purchase. With toilet paper becoming scarce, the demand for bidets has skyrocketed.
Bidets provide better comfort and cleaning than standard toilet paper and can be beneficial for just about anyone, and especially helpful for those with physical disabilities, like arthritis or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, according to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The advantages of bidet include health, hygiene, privacy, eco-friendliness and more, according to the nonprofit.
Bidets also prove more environmentally-friendly than toilet paper. Justin Thomas, editor of the website metaefficient.com, considers bidets to be “a key green technology” because they eliminate the use of toilet paper. According to his analysis, Americans use 36.5 billion rolls of toilet paper annually, switching to bathroom bidets could save some 15 million trees. Says Thomas: “This also involves 473,587,500,000 gallons of water to produce the paper and 253,000 tons of chlorine for bleaching.” He adds that manufacturing requires about 17.3 terawatts of electricity annually and that significant amounts of energy and materials are used in packaging and in transportation to retail outlets.
To those who say that bidets waste water, advocates counter that the amount is trivial compared to how much water we use to produce toilet paper in the first place. Most bidets last for years and require minimal cleaning and maintenance.
Though Americans are used to cleaning themselves off with only dry toilet paper, cleaning with a stream of water from a bidet is considered the best way to get clean in most other countries. Once you’ve used a bidet, you’ll realize that just using toilet paper is actually uncomfortable, ineffective, and old-fashioned!
Call Kowality Plumbing at 602-653-9230 if you’re ready to make the switch!