Saving plastic one loo roll at a time
| Let’s talk about loo roll. Everything lately has been about single use plastics, the straws, the cups, the carriers bag and although those things do need to work their way out of circulation, very few of us use those products every single day. |
| What we do use every day is loo roll. Unless you are at the stage of your zero waste journey where you are using reusable family cloth. I’m not sure we will ever be there so lets focus back on the loo roll. At first thought you may not realise how much plastic goes into loo paper. It’s paper right? BUT, Unless you have a take away coffee everyday, and some do – you maybe using more plastic from purchasing shrink wrapped loo roll. Manufacturing loo paper is quite resourceful heavy: water, paper, trees, manufacturing, distribution. When focusing on single use plastic these things often get over looked. The loo roll itself comes wrapped in plastic that can not easily be recycled if at all. At the warehouse these will be often shrink wrapped on pallets with more plastic. Then there is all the air miles and transportation to think of – or maybe let’s not because we would never buy anything. On a serious note this is just to highlight that it isn’t necessarily the single plastic items that are the bad guys. We can look at what we use as a whole and think how can we reduce that. That doesn’t need to always be plastic. Some plastic items can be useful – like medical supplies. It is important to consider other factors in your purchases and just do the best you can with what is available. For example you could opt for recycled instead of non recycled. For the record recycled loo paper does not mean loo paper that has been used and re purposed, really not sure why people ask us that? And, yes, they really do. The paper itself is made from recycled paper/material. This can be a good option, after all it is thee most single used item on the planet. It is used for seconds, and flushed away. Do we really need it to be made from brand new resources, shipped from China, wrapped in plastic and bleached so heavily it glows in the dark! |
Boxroll loo roll is made in the UK and plastic free – here is the lo-down on this great product
We love BOXROLL. And that is why we sell it. As with most of our products we buy them and test them first. We went through our own box of 24 loo rolls that we purchased from Natural Weigh. Natural Weigh is in Brecon if you live near there, first zero waste shop in Wales. Pop in and say hi!
We bought, we tried and we liked. The main draw was that they are based in the UK. We love the brand Who Gives a Crap and still support them but as a small business we could not possibly afford their ridiculously high minimum order, nor do we have any where to store it. But also they do ship from China and when there is a perfectly good UK brand that seems like a vanity project to me. They also individually wrap each loo roll which is fun, creative and sporting some marvellous art and patterns but as much as I have enjoyed using up the wrappers for deliveries and gifts – it is surplus paper.
Boxroll are based in the East Midlands. I caught up with Steve to ask him a few questions so I could get my facts right for this article. This is also a selling point for us, Steve is always helpful and responds to our orders quickly. He has made it possible for a small company like ours to be able to stock his product without the sky high minimum orders.
Here is what I found out:-
- Based in the UK, as mentioned above, they are in the East midlands, this is where they assemble their product and distribute from
- The cardboard is supplied from Wrexham
- The paper tape for the boxes is supplied from Prestwick
- The tissue is supplied from North Wales
- Their entire product is UK based and so when we buy from Boxroll and when you buy from us, you are also supporting these 4 other UK based companies
- To top it off for a a gold star they also use UK vegan ink to print the boxes with.
With a little investigation you can find out more. It is worth asking the questions, it is even better when you get the answers you were hoping for.
Buying Boxroll from No Waste Living
We have stocked Boxroll for a while now and it goes down well as a product and we have a handful on our subscription.
We offer Boxroll as single roll, boxes of 24 and bulk buy of 3 boxes.
The single rolls, single boxes and bulk buy are available for local delivery for CF72, CF15 and CF38
The bulk buy of 3 boxes are available for UK delivery.
We have also had a chat with Steve about their products and we have some good news. Here is an extract from the info Steve sent us.
Eco Plus’ Boxroll Toilet Rolls – this is a 2 Ply Recycled Toilet Roll which will replace the current product, exactly same dimensions (except a bigger diameter) but it has 400 sheets versus 300 sheets current and each roll is 42 meters long versus 31.5 meters current. That means there’s over 1Km of paper in a box of 24 rolls !!!
Great stuff, more loo roll in the box, means less cardboard tubes being used and less cardboard boxes. We will keep the price the same for now and see how it goes. I also have it on good authority that Who Gives A Crap have done the opposite of this, the price is the same but they have reduced the amount of loo roll you get.
Even better news for Boxroll customers, there is also a luxury version that we stock now too. The luxury version is the same great product all made by Steve and his UK suppliers but it is softer and a bit thicker. It isn’t made from recycled paper but it is For those of you that trialled the current version but maybe wanted something a bit more ‘hyacinthe’ then this is for you. It is the same price per box but you get less of it because it is thicker.
Both options are now available on the website. We are really excited about being able to offer more and now publicly announce we can deliver the 3 boxes, bulk buy option UK wide.
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