Recycled vs Bamboo
There's been a lot of conversation over the past few years around the sustainability toilet paper. And for good reason, it’s something we use everyday so a little change can make a big difference.
So first up, what are the different types of toilet paper. There’s ‘virgin pulp’ toilet paper, made from cutting down trees, bamboo toilet paper, made from - well you guessed it - bamboo, and there’s recycled toilet paper, made from office and home recycling.
Virgin pulp is an ecological disaster. Yes, even if it’s from sustainable sources. Don’t just take our word for it, listen to people like Reuters, New York Times & the WWF.
Bamboo is so much better than virgin pulp. It grows extraordinarily fast, regenerates without replanting, and doesn't require the pesticide inputs that conventional agriculture demands but it isn’t the silver bullet bamboo brands claim it is. It’s plagued by problems with associated with shipping from China, coal fired power for processing and damaging biodiversity. And that’s even assuming it’s even bamboo in the rolls (more on this extraordinary finding from Which? Magazine below)
Then there’s recycled. Now adding to the complexity there’s multiple types of recycled (spoiler alert: 100% post consumer waste, our kind, is the best). If you get the best kind of recycled, it’s the most sustainable option. That’s why it gets the top score from the Natural Resource Defence Council, . In fact the only draw back with recycled is if the entire world wanted to switch tomorrow, there wouldn’t be enough.
Now if you want to go real deep and get really nerdy about toilet roll, strap in…
One. Million. Trees. Chopped. Every. Day. For. Virgin. Paper. (and that's a conservative view!)
It's true - most toilet paper sold globally is still made from virgin tree pulp. In fact, one million trees are chopped down every day for this practice (this may actually be on the conservative side). The homes of these trees are sometimes old-growth forests (you know… the mature, dense, beautiful ones we'd all love to escape to and walk through - many of them hundreds of years old, some older) which are being harvested to produce a product that gets used once before being flushed away. Seems sad. Is sad. The NRDC (National Resources Defence Council) has repeatedly flagged the toilet paper industry as one of the most destructive forces of these forests, with major consumer brands sourcing pulp from areas with serious ecological value.
It's a real issue and while we are of course in the toilet paper industry ourselves, this is the baseline we're all trying to improve on, and the very reason Serious Tissues exists. Both recycled and bamboo toilet paper exist largely as alternatives to this, and on that front, both are meaningfully better than the status quo. But they're not equivalent - and guess what? The differences matter.
Worth knowing: Ethical Consumer.org calculates that around 1 million trees are felled globally every day for household and sanitary paper products. An independent study in 2022 estimated this at closer to 1.9 million.
What makes recycled fibre a good choice?
The logic is pretty simple when you get down below. These fibres already exist - in office paper, newspapers (although some you wish didn’t exist), cardboard packaging, magazines, you name it - and we hate to break it to you - many of them are heading straight for landfill once they’ve had their time in the sun. However, recycled toilet paper catches them before that happens and puts them back to work. One more use before they're done.
Now, recycled fibres don't appear out of thin air, they’re not wizards - let's be clear about that. The paper that goes into recycled toilet paper had to be produced at some point, and that original production did have an impact (perhaps the magazine made you laugh). We're not pretending otherwise but there is a difference; the impact already happened, the fibres already exist at the point of making loo roll. So, the key question is what do you do with these existing fibres? The answer? Make the absolute most environmental good you possibly can out of them by keeping them in use for as long as possible.
You’re not going to find a roll of toilet paper (or anything produced actually) that has zero footprint; but businesses should be doing everything possible to reduce their footprint by maximising the useful life of materials that are already in circulation, minimising waste, and avoiding the need to keep extracting and producing new things from scratch.
And the independent research backs this up. Which? and Ethical Consumer two of the most trusted consumer research organisations in the UK both assess recycled toilet paper as the most environmentally responsible choice when you look at the full lifecycle. Not bamboo. Not virgin pulp. Recycled (100% post-consumer like ours)
Ethical Consumer says: "Recycled paper does not require the destruction of any forest, whether that is ancient, planned, or bamboo forest. It also uses less energy and water, and makes use of paper that might otherwise be sent to landfill." They consider it outright "the most sustainable and ethical choice."
Which? says: When they spoke to experts from the WWF and the NRDC, both agreed that while sustainably grown bamboo can be better than virgin tree paper, recycled paper is usually an even better choice.
There’s no silver bullet in the production of toilet paper
Recycled toilet paper isn't without its complications, and it wouldn't be fair to pretend otherwise.
The recycling process does require water, energy, and in many cases de-inking agents to strip out the inks and coatings from source materials. How clean and efficient that process is varies between manufacturers, therefore not all recycled paper is created equal, but we’re pretty good, we won’t lie.
Our production facility is 100% power by renewable power and we’ve employed filtration systems where the water is cleaner when it leaves the factory than when it came in.
It’s worth noting too that the source of the recycled material makes a difference too. Post-consumer waste-paper (this is key, we only use this) that's been used in homes and offices is generally considered better than pre-consumer waste, which is basically factory offcuts that never reached a consumer in the first place. Both technically count as recycled but they're not the same thing.
Finally, it’s also worth noting that the recycled content will vary between manufacturer also some will use a blend of recycled content, mixed with wood fibres(we don’t, it’s not our jam). We use 100% recycled content (now we’re talking). It’s worth nothing that, just 70% recycled content is enough according to Ethical Consumer to out-box bamboo & virgin materials for the sustainability heavy-weight title, so what about the brands that using 100% content? *blushing* Think it goes without saying.
Ethical Consumer says: "Choose post-consumer recycled toilet paper if you can." Unless it's recycled, post-consumer waste is far more likely to end up in landfill - so intercepting it for toilet paper is genuinely useful.
Let’s look at how sustainable bamboo toilet paper is
Bamboo has real strengths. You’ll probably have heard or already know that is grows super-fast, it’s true. It genuinely does grow fast. What else? It sequesters carbon during its growth phase, its root system regenerates after harvesting without needing to be replanted, pretty clever. It can grow without pesticides or heavy irrigation, really good for the planet.
In our view, there are some catches though. Despite its marketing around its regenerative nature, it very quietly skips over what happens next, and this is the part that reaaaally matters.
Turning bamboo into toilet paper is not a gentle process. Firstly, it upsets the pandas, who have by now grown rather fond of it (this is a joke, for all the people that wrote in last time we made a panda joke). Once harvested, bamboo has to go through a surprisingly intensive transformation before it ends up on your bathroom shelf. This is the more secretive part of the tale, strap in.
Bamboo by nature is a tough, dense grass with a high silica content and a fibrous structure that doesn't break down easily. Have you ever tried to snap it? To turn it into something soft enough to use, it has to be broken down chemically - typically through a process called kraft pulping, which involves cooking the bamboo chips at high pressure in a solution of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulphide. This dissolves the lignin (the stuff that makes bamboo rigid and strong) and separates out the usable cellulose fibres. It's effective, but it's energy-hungry, chemically intensive, and generates significant wastewater in the process. That’s already a pretty hefty manufacturing footprint for an ‘eco’ product.
So yes, while the bamboo plant itself may be clean and fast-growing, the factory and process doing the work to transform it is a different kettle of little fishies. Speaking of factories…
Where bamboo actually comes from? and what powers it?
Here's a part of the bamboo story that in our view - really doesn't get enough airtime (but no one’s going to market it, let’s be Serious). The overwhelming majority of bamboo used in toilet paper on UK shelves is grown and processed in China. That's a long way from your bathroom cabinet (about 11,000km to be specific), and the shipping footprint alone is worth factoring in.
We’ve been through the process of breaking bamboo down, the energy & water use associated, we’ve touched on the shipping distances above, but the more significant issue is what powers the manufacturing during the production process. Despite genuine progress on renewable energy in recent years, around 60% of China's industrial energy still comes from coal. Coal-burning power stations means we have no choice but to use the F words. Fossil fuels. It’s not new or lost on most people that this is the kind of energy source that pumps carbon into the atmosphere at scale, we’ve all seen pictures of smoggy industrial estates.
So, while the bamboo plant itself may be absorbing carbon as it grows, the process of turning it into toilet paper and shipping it halfway around the world is, in many cases, being powered by one of the dirtiest energy sources on the planet. Strong language again – but we’re passionate about this.
A 2025 academic study found that under current production conditions in China, bamboo-based toilet paper does not show a lower carbon footprint than wood-based alternatives. The researchers were clear that this reflects the energy mix and manufacturing conditions in China - not an inherent problem with bamboo as a plant. But the conditions are what they are right now, and that's what matters when you're making a purchasing decision today.
Are bamboo plantations better than forests?
A big one this. Bamboo plantations particularly at the scale needed to supply a global consumer market of billions - don't exist in a vacuum. In many cases, they displace natural forests which as we know are rich in extraordinary biodiversity, layered ecosystems, and full to the brim with animals and insects we know and love (some scary ones), and others we haven’t even discovered yet. Bamboo plantations in contrary are a monoculture. A monoculture is essentially one species, grown in rows, managed for yield. It doesn't harbour the range of wildlife, insects, fungi, and plant species that a natural forest does. Researchers from INBAR - the world's leading bamboo authority - have warned that vast areas of natural Sichuan forest have been converted in the past two decades as commercial bamboo farming has expanded, causing serious biodiversity loss.
None of this means bamboo is the absolute pantomime villain of the piece. But it does mean the full picture is considerably more complicated than simply saying "bamboo is good, tree-felling is bad."
And here's something Which? found that really is worth knowing
Beyond the environmental question, there's another bamboo issue that we think needs a little more light on it: some very popular bamboo toilet paper doesn’t contain very much bamboo content at all! WHAT!?
In 2024, Which? independently tested five of the leading bamboo toilet roll brands. The results were pretty startling. Three of the five tested, Bazoo, Bumboo, and Naked Sprout (now Naked Paper) were found to contain very little bamboo.
📋 Which? testing found: One brand contained just 2.7% bamboo. Another had 4%. A third had 26%. The rest was primarily fast-growing virgin hardwood - mostly eucalyptus, with some acacia in two of the samples. Acacia has been associated with damaging deforestation in Indonesia.
This was just two years ago – it certainly raises a legitimate question about how much scrutiny the bamboo supply chain actually gets.
Anyway back to the good stuff…
We know recycled is better but what about the "isn't recycled paper horrible to use?" thing
Recycled toilet paper had (and perhaps still has) a reputation for being rough, thin, and frankly unpleasant – think office block stuff from the 1990s and beyond. In fact – for many brands on the market today, this is still the case. BUT not for us.
While clearly, not all are adopting them - processing techniques have improved significantly. Fibre blending is getting smarter and smarter enabling good manufacturers (any hints who?) to produce a genuinely soft, genuinely strong, and genuinely comparable product which stands toe to toe with alternatives made from virgin materials. The idea that choosing sustainability means accepting an inferior product is increasingly outdated if you choose correctly - and that matters. A sustainable product people don't actually want to use doesn't really solve anything.
On price: Ethical Consumer's research found that many of the highest-scoring ethical recycled brands are actually cheaper per 100 sheets than mainstream brands like Andrex and Cushelle. You don't have to pay a premium to do the right thing - which is a nice bonus!
The results
A few things worth checking, whatever you're buying
Whether you're looking at recycled or bamboo, these questions are worth asking:
What's the actual recycled content, and is it post-consumer? Where is it made, and what powers the manufacturing? What certifications does it carry? FSC Recycled, EU Ecolabel, and similar are decent indicators for virgin materials.
For bamboo specifically: is it FSC certified, and has it been independently fibre-tested? After the Which? findings, that last question isn't unreasonable to ask.
Ethical Consumer's simple summary: Buy recycled. Look for FSC certification if buying bamboo. Avoid excess packaging and plastic. And avoid virgin tree loo roll.
The bottom line
In first place:
If you’re a self-professed planet-head, like we are, and you want to balance this with softness, strength and durability - Serious Tissues 100% post-consumer-waste recycled toilet paper made here in the UK from post-consumer wastepaper is the legitimate best choice. More generally - recycled paper works within a system that already exists, avoids the need for new raw material inputs, and is consistently endorsed by independent research as the most responsible option when you look at the full lifecycle.
In second place:
Bamboo is a real improvement on conventional virgin wood pulp, and in the right context where recycled isn't a viable option it has a genuine role to play. But between the coal-powered factories, the monoculture plantations, the chemical processing, the miles travelled, and the real questions the Which? testing raised *insert link* about supply chain integrity, the gap between bamboo's natural growing credentials and its actual environmental footprint is larger than its marketing tends to acknowledge.
In Third place:
There isn’t one – we can’t keep cutting down trees to make toilet paper. Both recycled and bamboo are better than what most of the world is still sadly buying. But if your goal is to make the most resource-efficient choice - recycled paper is, consistently, the one the evidence points to and ours just happens to be even better.
Sources: