What does eco toilet roll really cost? A price comparison

The short answer, honestly, it's surprisingly hard to work out what toilet roll really costs. Sure we’re cheaper per roll than bamboo brands like Naked Paper, Who Gives a Crap (and their recycled paper) and Cheeky Panda. But every roll has a different sized sheets, plies and sheet count. So brands will try and price per 100 sheets, but even that can hide a small roll or a thin sheet.

So we measure it by the thing you're actually buying: paper. Count every sheet and every ply, lay it all out flat, and work out the cost per square metre. On that measure, Serious Tissues costs 8.5p to 11.4p per square metre depending on how big a box you buy.

That makes us cheaper than Who Gives A Crap bamboo, Naked Paper bamboo or recycled, Cheeky Panda and even buying Andrex at the super market. Full disclosure: Who Gives A Crap Recycled is a little cheaper than us, but we'll get to that (and why we Serious is a more ecologically sound choice).

First, a quick word on fibre

Before price, the biggest choice you make with toilet roll is what it's made from. Here's how the main options stack up:

Fibre	What it is	How sustainable is it?
Virgin wood pulp	Trees cut down to make single-use tissue (most supermarket brands, like Andrex and Cushelle)	The worst option. It's an ecological disaster for something you use once.
Bamboo	A fast-growing grass, mostly grown and pulped in China	A big step up from virgin pulp. But it's still grown as a crop and shipped halfway round the world.
Recycled (post-industrial)	Offcuts from paper mills that never reached a customer	Good, but it's waste that would often be reused anyway.
Recycled (post-consumer)	Paper people have already used and thrown away: office paper, magazines, household paper	The greenest option. It keeps real waste out of landfill, and no new trees or crops are needed.

Every major independent report, from Which? to the Natural Resources Defense Council, rates recycled as the greenest fibre for toilet paper. Recycled has come top in every edition of the NRDC's Issue With Tissue report.

Serious Tissues is 100% post-consumer recycled paper, collected in the UK and made in Blackburn.

Why price per roll and price per 100 sheets can trip you up

These are the numbers you'll usually see. None of them are wrong exactly, they just each leave something out.

Price per roll assumes every roll is the same size. They really aren't.
Sheets per roll doesn't tell you how big each sheet is.
Price per 100 sheets is better, but it treats a small 2-ply sheet the same as a big 3-ply one.

Here's how much sheets vary:

Brand	Sheet size (mm)	Ply	Sheets per roll	Paper per sheet, all plies (cm²)	Paper per roll (m²)
Andrex Classic Clean	124 × 103	2	200	255	5.11
Naked Paper (recycled and bamboo)	100 × 97	2	320	194	6.21
Who Gives A Crap Bamboo	100 × 100	3	370	300	11.10
Who Gives A Crap Recycled	100 × 100	3	400	300	12.00
Serious Tissues	110 × 100	3	250	330	8.25

Andrex has the biggest sheet here but only two plies, so each sheet has less paper in it than ours. Naked has more sheets per roll than us, but they're smaller and 2-ply, so a Naked roll has 25% less paper than a Serious one. Who Gives A Crap rolls are longer than ours and hold more paper per roll.

So "sheets per roll" on its own doesn't tell you a great deal.

Why we use cost per square metre

We wanted one number that works for any roll, whatever its size. The fairest we've found is cost per square metre of paper: how much you pay for each square metre of tissue, counting every ply.

It's simple to work out:

Multiply the sheet height by the sheet width to get the size of one sheet.
Multiply by the number of sheets on the roll.
Multiply by the number of plies.
Divide the price of the roll by that total.

For Serious Tissues that's 0.110 m × 0.100 m × 250 sheets × 3 ply = 8.25 m² of paper per roll. At £0.70 a roll, that's 8.5p per square metre.

You can do this for any brand that tells you its sheet size, sheet count and ply, which is exactly why we like it.

The comparison

Brand and range	Fibre	Ply	Sheet size (mm)	Sheets per roll	Paper per roll (m²)	Price per roll	Cost per square metre
Who Gives A Crap Recycled	Recycled	3	100 × 100	400	12.00	£0.92 – £1.17	7.7p – 9.8p
Serious Tissues	Recycled	3	110 × 100	250	8.25	£0.70 – £0.94	8.5p – 11.4p
Cheeky Panda Bamboo (Double-Length)	Bamboo	3	120 × 102	380	13.95	£1.00 – £1.67	7.2p – 12.0p
Who Gives A Crap Bamboo	Bamboo	3	100 × 100	370	11.10	£1.00 – £1.33	9.0p – 12.0p
Andrex Complete Clean	Virgin wood pulp	2	124 × 103	190	4.85	£0.50 – £0.74	10.3p – 15.2p
Naked Recycled	Recycled	2	100 × 97	320	6.21	£0.68 – £0.98	11.0p – 15.8p
Naked Bamboo	Bamboo	2	100 × 97	320	6.21	£0.71 – £1.06	11.4p – 17.1p

Cheapest first. The lower price is the biggest pack on subscription; the higher price is the smallest pack bought as a one-off. Prices checked September 2026.

Per square metre, Serious Tissues is 5–6% cheaper than Who Gives A Crap Bamboo, 23–28% cheaper than Naked Recycled and 26–33% cheaper than Naked Bamboo.

So why are we the greenest option?

Cheeky Panda’s bamboo rolls can be cheaper if you subscribe to their bulk option, but it’s still bamboo with the inescapable problem with that fibre (shipping distances, monoculture, etc).

Who Gives A Crap Recycled is still a little over 10% less per square metre than we are, and they give 50% of their profits to sanitation charities, which is brilliant.

Here's what the difference gets you with Serious Tissues:

Brand and range	100% post-consumer waste?	Fibre collected in the UK?	Made in the UK?
Serious Tissues	Yes	Yes	Yes, in Blackburn
Who Gives A Crap Recycled	No	No	No, made in Malaysia or China
Who Gives A Crap Bamboo	No	No	No, made in China
Naked Recycled	No	No	No, made in Girona, Spain
Naked Bamboo	No	No, grown in China	No, made in Girona, Spain

We're the only one of these that's all three: 100% post-consumer waste, sourced in the UK and made in the UK. That's the greenest toilet roll we know how to make, and it's what you're paying for.

Crazy as it sounds, it's often cheaper to make recycled paper halfway round the world and ship it here. We'd rather take the UK's waste paper and turn it into soft, 3-ply toilet roll just up the road. On top of that, we've planted over 1.3 million trees so far.

What square metres don't tell you

Cost per square metre tells you how much paper you get. It doesn't tell you how thick each ply is, or how soft it feels. If softness is your number one priority, bamboo usually wins there, and independent testers like Which? agree. We think recycled has come a long way (our 3-ply is properly soft) but we'd be fibbing if we said bamboo wasn't softer.

Questions people ask us

What's the fairest way to compare toilet roll prices?

Cost per square metre of paper. Take the price per roll and divide it by sheet height × sheet width × sheets per roll × ply. Price per roll and price per 100 sheets both miss out how big the sheets are and how many plies they have.

How much does Serious Tissues cost per square metre?

8.5p to 11.4p per square metre of paper, depending on the pack size and whether you subscribe. Each roll has 8.25 m² of paper on it.

Is Serious Tissues cheaper than Who Gives A Crap?

Cheaper than Who Gives A Crap Bamboo by 5–6% per square metre. Who Gives A Crap Recycled is 11–17% cheaper than us, but it isn't 100% post-consumer waste and it isn't made in the UK.

Is Serious Tissues cheaper than Naked?

Yes. Per square metre of paper we're 23–28% cheaper than Naked Recycled and 26–33% cheaper than Naked Bamboo.

Why does Serious Tissues look pricier per 100 sheets?

Because our sheets are bigger and 3-ply. A Serious Tissues sheet is 110 × 100 mm, 10% bigger than Who Gives A Crap's and 13% bigger than Naked's, and Naked's are 2-ply. Counting sheets treats them all as the same.

Which eco toilet roll is made in the UK from UK waste?

Of the brands compared here, only Serious Tissues. We use 100% post-consumer paper collected in the UK and make our toilet roll in Blackburn. Who Gives A Crap is made in Malaysia or China, and Naked Paper in Girona, Spain.

Is Naked Paper made in the UK?

No. Naked Paper is made by LC Paper in Girona, Spain. Its recycled range uses cardboard collected in Girona, and its bamboo comes from Sichuan, China.

Is Who Gives A Crap recycled toilet paper made in the UK?

No. Who Gives A Crap says its recycled paper is collected mostly from schools near its factories overseas. Its US help centre says it has been made in Malaysia since August 2025; its 2024 FAQ says China.

Is recycled or bamboo toilet paper better for the environment?

Recycled. Every major independent report rates it the greenest fibre choice. Bamboo is a big step up from virgin wood pulp, though, so if you've switched from Andrex to bamboo, nice one.

How we worked this out

The sum: cost per square metre = price per roll ÷ (sheet height × sheet width × sheets per roll × ply).
Who Gives A Crap sourcing: UK help centre, "100% Recycled Toilet Paper" (support.whogivesacrap.org/hc/en-gb/articles/11896991530265); US help centre, "Where is all of this made?" (support.whogivesacrap.org/hc/en-us/articles/11901752664729); "Made in China FAQ", 24 July 2024 (blog.whogivesacrap.org/home/made-in-china-faq).
Naked Paper sourcing: "Our Supply Chain" (uk.nakedpaper.com/pages/our-supply-chain); "Join our team trip to the factory!", 13 October 2025 (uk.nakedpaper.com/blogs/news/naked-paper-factory-tour).
Andrex sheet size: Andrex Classic Clean 2-ply, 124 × 103 mm, 200 sheets (office-supplier product listings). [CONFIRM]
Prices: brand websites, [DATE].
Sourcing facts checked 28 September 2026. If any brand changes its prices or specs, tell us and we'll update this page. Last updated [DATE].