When you put out an ad that doesn't tell the whole truth, it gets answered.
So, I was checking in on my Facebook and one of their annoying ads started playing on my screen. I wasn't going to pay too much attention to it, but they started out with the heavy hitting facts of how many trees are cut down in America each minute.
The number is 65.
Half of their video is about how many trees are cut down and then they explain that there is a better option. Using bamboo and sugarcane as an alternative for making toilet paper. Well, that didn't didn't sit well with one person and he asked the important question that isn't answered in the short video and started a discussion.
Where did the land for your bamboo and sugar cane come from? Are you sure that you are not promoting deforestation and land use change from forest to agriculture? The forest products industry does not wipe out forests - instead they practice sustainable, and often certified, forest management of secondary forests. I am all for protecting important forests, but managing secondary ones is good land management.
Seedling products use responsibly sourced bamboo and sugarcane from small family farms in China. These farms are not contributing to clear-cutting forests. Bamboo is renowned for being one of the top eco-friendly materials: It doesn’t need to be replanted, improves the soil quality, can be grown without fertilizers or pesticides, hypoallergenic, and has anti-bacterial qualities.
The company responds that there is no need to worry about deforestation, because it comes from small family farms in China. Which were already growing bamboo and sugarcane? And aren't using pesticides or harmful chemicals in their processing? OKay. Sure.
As more forest and lumber people pile on, someone makes the good point about shipping those raw or processed materials overseas. Yup. Save the trees in America so we can pollute the water with freight ships.
As one comment mentions, they currently are so good at producing wood pulp using pine trees and sustainable methods, that they are producing too much and are reducing the acres that they plant on. In fact, there is an article from October 2018 about the over planting of trees in an attempt to profit off the demand.
- Thousands of Southerners Planted Trees for Retirement. It Didn’t Work
Too much pine and not enough saw mills spell years of depressed prices for plantations
The Bottom Line
Where I live, they have historical photos of the area from the early 1900's and, except for the neighborhood housing, most of the area was tobacco fields. That means there were large amounts of areas without trees. Sure, there are a lot more houses in the area now, but there are a lot more trees overall.
There are more trees in America today, than there were 100 years ago.
The U.S. has 8% of the total forests in the world, and reached a point in 1997 where growth “exceeded harvest by 42%” and we were growing forests at a rate of roughly four times faster than we were in 1920
The article then points out that, while things are great in the USA, the rest of the world is still "chop happy".
A more recent article paints a greener picture.
Despite ongoing deforestation, fires, drought-induced die-offs, and insect outbreaks, the world's tree cover actually increased by 2.24 million square kilometers—an area the size of Texas and Alaska combined—over the past 35 years, finds a paper published in the journal Nature. But the research also confirms large-scale loss of the planet's most biodiverse ecosystems, especially tropical forests.
History has shown, that when 3rd world communities get an influx of demand for a agriculture product, they tend to destroy their environment in order to meet the need. A lot of the deforestation happening in South America has to do with opening up land for more profitable crops. Frankly, it is better for 1st world countries to try to resolve a resource issue at home, than rely on external sources to do it in an environmentally friendly way.
In the end, wood pulp turned into paper towels and toilet paper isn't an issue. It is currently being made from sustainable products in the U.S.A. No need to haul it on a cargo ship across the ocean.
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