Ethical Toilet Paper

What is the most ethical toilet paper?

It would be easy to think that we live in the golden age of toilet roll. 

Never before has there been such an abundance of choice and luxury. If you wish to wipe with triple ply paper made from virgin tree pulp and scented with midnight ylang and amber, you can. Or, if your behind prefers a quilted tissue that feels like cashmere enriched with extracts of camomile, you can have that too.

But all this comes at a cost to our forests. 

According to our calculations, around 345m trees are felled globally every year to produce toilet paper and other “sanitary and household” paper products. (Other products include facial tissue, kitchen towels, napkins, etc, but we expect that toilet paper accounts for a large proportion). 

This amounts to just under 1 million trees felled every day.

Most of this is unlikely to lead to permanent forest loss as many of the trees felled are from controlled areas where they will be replaced with new ones. Even so, forests are essential habitats for wildlife and act as important carbon sinks, so if we can avoid cutting them down, we should. And it is not at all necessary to use virgin trees to make toilet paper.

What are the important things to look for when choosing sustainable toilet paper?

With a confusing array of virgin tree pulp, recycled paper (including post-consumer waste paper) and bamboo toilet roll available, this guide will help you understand the important issues so that you can make a decision that matches your ethics and requirements. We cover:

• what to consider for the environment
• what labels and certifications to look for
• what to choose if buying supermarket own-brand loo roll 
• how sustainable bamboo toilet paper is
• what chemicals might be used in toilet paper
• whether sustainable toilet paper costs more (spoiler: it doesn't!)

With one very well-known brand languishing at the bottom of the score table, and a cluster of recommended brands scoring very highly, it's possible to easily swap our choice of toilet paper and make a difference ethically and environmentally, especially as we use so much of the stuff.

Trees and toilet paper

There are a lot of statistics out there on how many trees are cut down to make toilet paper. These range from 270,000 trees a day according to the WWF in 2005, to 1.9m trees per day according to a report commissioned by recycled/bamboo toilet paper brand Who Gives A Crap in 2022.

Our own calculations put the figure at just under 1m trees felled globally every day, but that is for “household and sanitary” paper products more generally. We primarily used data from The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which is a reliable source, but doesn’t segment its data enough to see how much paper is used for toilet paper specifically.

Another problem with statistics about trees being felled is that trees come in many shapes and sizes, so talking about the number of trees felled for paper production is potentially misleading. For this reason, the industry generally relies on the weight of timber or pulp for its reporting. But tonnes of timber are harder to visualise than forests of trees. I could tell you that in 2024 around 190 million tonnes of virgin timber was used to make paper products, but to most people that probably doesn’t mean much.

Does demand for virgin paper drive deforestation?

Historically, the UK has lost a lot of forest and now only has around 13% forest cover, making it one of the least densely forested countries in Europe, which has 46% as a whole. This probably explains why we are the second largest net importer of forest products in the world, (the largest is China).

The good news is that this trend is now reversing: every decade since 1990, UK forest cover has increased by around 0.5%. Europe as a whole has also seen an increase over the same period, though a lesser one, averaging 0.1% per decade.

At the global level, things aren’t so good. According to a paper in the scientific journal Nature, over 15bn trees are cut down each year, and the global number of trees has fallen by approximately 46% since the start of human civilisation. 

And we are still losing forests. 

Between 2010 and 2020 the global forest area reduced by around 4.7m hectares (0.1%) per year. In the illustrative tradition of converting large areas of land into sports grounds, that’s the equivalent of over 18,000 football pitches per day.

It’s important to point out that chopping down trees doesn’t necessarily lead to deforestation, which is generally defined as human-caused, permanent removal of natural forest cover. 

As you can see from the graphic below, logging accounts for a quarter of tree cover loss globally, and with around 35% of harvested trees used for paper manufacture, including toilet paper, the paper industry is a driver of tree loss cover. But this includes plantations as well as natural forest, and it doesn’t appear to be a major driver of permanent loss, unlike agriculture. 

And in terms of agriculture, clearing forest for cattle pasture is the biggest driver, responsible for at least 36% of all tree cover loss associated with agriculture.

Causes of global tree cover loss

• 33% Permanent agriculture 
• 29% Wildfire
• 25% Logging
• 9.4% Shifting cultivation
• 1.4% Other natural disturbance
• <1% Settlements and infrastructure
• <1% Hard commodities

(Source: World Resources Institute)

While most of the forest loss driven by the logging and, by extension, the paper industry might be temporary, it can still cause problems. As the World Resources Institute stresses: “Some loss can be temporary, though the time it takes for forests to regrow and their condition after regeneration may vary.” 

Felling forests or using plantations is also disruptive in many other ways too. For example, animals lose habitat and roads need to be made through the forest for the vehicles and industrial machinery. 

So, if we can avoid cutting down forests, it is better to do so. 

Fortunately, there are easily available alternatives.

Recycled paper

Ethical Consumer considers toilet paper made from recycled pulp to be the most sustainable and ethical choice. The key point is this: 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.

There are seven brands in this guide that sell recycled paper, so you have plenty of choice.

Which brands sell recycled toilet roll?

If you choose to buy recycled paper toilet roll, there are other options to consider as well. In the table below we note the packaging used and the bleaching process. 

*Most brands will use some form of bleaching in their processes. In the past chlorine was used but has now generally been replaced because of its harmful effects. See below for more on the bleaching process.

Which supermarkets sell own brand recycled toilet paper?

Of the supermarkets, the following sell recycled own-brand toilet paper: 

• Co-op
• Morrisons
• Ocado
• Sainsbury’s
• Tesco
• Waitrose

Asda previously did, but when we checked its recycled paper was out of stock and it wasn’t clear if the line will be continued.

To see how supermarkets perform overall, see our supermarkets guide.

Is recycled paper still on the decline?

When we last updated this product guide in 2023, we reported that the biggest producers (Kimberly-Clark, Essity, and Sofidel) were using less recycled fibre to produce their paper than they had in the past. For example, in 2011, Kimberly-Clark used 29.7% recycled fibre but in 2021 it used only 19.3%.

We’ve seen some good news on this front, but also bad.

The good news is that Essity (Cushelle and Velvet brands) has increased its use of recycled fibre quite significantly, from 36% in 2021 to 50% in 2023, but 45% in 2024. This is overall good news, and Essity told us that they intend to further increase their use of recycled fibre and are even opening a new recycled paper plant in the UK in April this year.

On the other hand, Kimberly-Clark’s recycled fibre use has continued to fall, from 19.3% in 2021 to just 18.7% in 2024. This means that 81.3% of the total fibre it used in 2024 is from virgin tree pulp, which amounts to over 2m metric tonnes of fibre coming from virgin trees.

Sofidel’s recycled fibre use has also continued to fall, from 7.3% in 2021 to 5.7% in 2024.

Which brands sell what type of toilet roll?

With choices of virgin or recycled wood pulp, different FSC logos, and bamboo fibre, working out which brands sell what can be confusing.

The table below lists the type of material used, and which brands currently sell it.

*Most Andrex products appear to be FSC-certified. However, when we checked supermarket shelves we found Andrex’s Family Soft Watermelon Wow was not. It may be the case that other brands also aren’t always FSC-certified, so always check the label.

Rating brands for paper use

Our paper rating assessed companies according to what type of fibres they were using to make their paper. We looked at all the paper a company used, not just its toilet paper.

• 100% recycled paper: If all of a company’s products were made using 100% recycled paper from post-consumer sources then it got full marks. 

Only two companies received full marks: Honest Supplies and Serious Tissues. 

Suma (Ecoleaf) and Essential received 90 points for recycled paper which was not just from post-consumer sources.

• 100% FSC-certified bamboo: If a company made all of its products from 100% FSC-certified bamboo, it received 80 points and if they also sold recycled toilet paper they received a total of 90 points. 

All of the bamboo brands in this guide used FSC-certified bamboo (Bamboo Bobbi, Bazoo, Bumboo, Cheeky Panda, Clean Sheet, Kind Behind, Naked Paper, Who Gives A Crap), except for Greencane, which scored 40 because it used uncertified bamboo, citing concerns around FSC-certified bamboo and greenwashing. While we accept that there is good reason to be critical of the FSC, we still consider it to be the best third-party standard when it comes to sustainable forestry.

• FSC-certified virgin pulp: We only awarded marks for paper made from virgin tree pulp if it was FSC certified. 

Nova received 40 marks for sourcing over 90% FSC-certified material (94% was FSC-Mix and the remainder was recycled).

Essity received 40 points for 45% of its total fibre being recycled fibre. The rest of its fibre was from virgin sources, the majority of it FSC-certified.

Sofidel and Kimberly-Clark received 30 points for sourcing high levels of FSC-certified virgin fibre plus some recycled fibre.

Kimberly-Clark sourced 80% eucalyptus which it stated could have a lower impact than bamboo. They pointed to a recent study which found that: “Chinese bamboo-based tissue exhibits a cradle-to-grave carbon footprint up to 32% higher than that of US wood-based tissue products manufactured with eucalyptus fibre from Brazil and softwood fibres from Canada.”

Is bamboo toilet paper sustainable?

There are a lot of brands selling bamboo toilet paper. The consensus has generally been that bamboo is a more sustainable option than virgin tree fibres, but less sustainable than paper made from recycled fibres. For example, the Natural Resources Defense Council, a US-based not-for-profit organisation, stated in its most recent Issue With Tissue Scorecard: “According to peer-reviewed life-cycle analyses, bamboo has much smaller land use and climate change impacts than forest fiber but a larger footprint than recycled forest fiber.”

And brands that sell both recycled paper fibres and bamboo tend to claim the former is better from an environmental perspective. Naked Paper, for example, has a detailed comparison on its website which looks at the question from many angles.

Bamboo is a fast-growing grass that, after harvesting, regrows from the same root, so it can be harvested multiple times. So, it seems to make sense that it would be a more sustainable fibre source than trees. However, there are many variables to consider – such as the energy mix used by the factories that process it (China still uses a lot of coal), and how far it needs to be shipped to reach the consumer.

Some recent studies have also cast some doubt over bamboo’s sustainability credentials. 

A US study published in 2025 stated: “Under current production conditions in China, bamboo-containing consumer bath tissue products do not exhibit a lower Global Warming Potential or greater overall sustainability than wood-based consumer bath tissue. This outcome reflects the geographic and technological context of present-day bamboo pulp production – particularly the energy mix and mill efficiency – rather than inherent environmental drawbacks of bamboo as a feedstock.”

So, for now, there isn’t a clear consensus on how good bamboo is, when so much depends on the specifics of its production.

Bleached and unbleached toilet paper

Bleaching is used in the paper-making process to break down lignin – the substance that gives trees and bamboo their stiffness – and to whiten the finished product.

In the past, chlorine was used but this has largely been replaced by other processes because of chlorine’s harmful effects.

Most paper is now bleached with chlorine dioxide in a process known as Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF). This still emits chlorine but in much smaller amounts than when elemental chlorine is used.

A small amount of paper is produced using alternatives to chlorine such as oxygen, ozone, and hydrogen peroxide. This process is known as Totally Chlorine Free (TCF).

When recycled paper is bleached without chlorine, it is known as Process Chlorine Free (PCF) because previous use of chlorine in the recovered paper can’t be ruled out.

Confusingly, some brands say they are unbleached when they mean that they are TCF. Others say they are chlorine-free and it’s not clear whether they mean ECF or TCF.

Some brands now offer unwhitened toilet paper. These have still gone through a bleaching process but one that uses much less bleach.

Forever chemicals in toilet paper

Research published in 2023 concluded that toilet paper was potentially a major source of PFAs entering wastewater treatment systems.

PFAs (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are chemicals that possess water and grease-repelling properties and are used in thousands of consumer products. Known as 'forever chemicals' because they don’t break down in water, they can spread over long distances and are toxic to humans and wildlife, interfering with hormonal, reproductive and immune systems.

The research tested 21 toilet paper samples from all over the world and found PFAs in all of them. The researchers speculated that PFAs are not intentionally added to toilet paper but are used in the manufacturing process to prevent paper pulp from sticking to machinery.

Plastic free packaging 

In terms of the overall environmental impact of toilet roll, packaging is not hugely significant because it is a relatively small part of the product. But it is still important. As with the toilet paper itself, packaging made from recycled paper is best.

Avoid plastic packaging. It may say “recyclable”, but plastic packaging is unnecessary and producing it comes with a host of environmental issues. For starters, it is derived from fossil fuels. And much of it isn’t recycled properly as most UK councils don’t collect soft plastics at the curb side, meaning lots of it will end up in landfill or being incinerated.

Do toilet rolls need to be individually wrapped?

No. It may look nice, but it isn’t necessary and many brands do without. However, there may be some reasons for wrapping them, and brands selling bamboo paper probably rely on this more because most are transporting their products all the way from China.

Clean Sheet told us that they individually wrap their toilet rolls for the following reasons:

• Hygiene and protection in transit: wrapping them keeps them from becoming dirty during shipping without having to rely on single use plastic wrap for the whole box.
• Hygiene and protection in your bathroom: as they are purchased in bulk most people need to store them for a while, and if you are storing them in the bathroom then moisture can be a problem.
• Spreading the word: distinctive branding helps their rolls stand out so they can grow and continue their mission (Clean Sheet donates its profits to grass-roots organisations).

They also stated that many of their customers reuse the wrapping paper for crafts or gift wrapping. While true, it isn’t known how many do this, and chances are most of it goes straight into the bin – hopefully the recycling one!

*Price taken from Tesco website.

Brands of toilet paper in this guide

The toilet paper market in the UK is dominated by a few billion dollar companies:

• US giant Kimberly-Clark (Andrex)
• Swedish multinational Essity (Velvet, Cushelle) 
• Italian Sofidel (Nicky, Regina) 
• supermarkets own-brand products 

Andrex is by far the most popular toilet paper brand in the UK, with nearly twice as many users as Cushelle and Tesco.

We’ve included all the big toilet paper brands in the guide but not the supermarkets. When we rated the supermarkets in 2024 they all scored fairly poorly. However, many people buy toilet roll from supermarkets so check out their own-brand recycled options mentioned earlier. 

The other brands in the guide are tiny compared with the big brands.

Who's behind the smaller brands?

We’ve included a variety of small brands most of which sell bamboo and recycled paper. Often these smaller brands are available direct from the companies’ own websites (some run subscription schemes), or from local wholefood shops, and from some eco online retailers. Check out the Places to Buy section for some shopping links.

Co-operative wholesalers Essential Trading and Suma both sell own-brand recycled toilet paper.

Bamboo Bobbi is owned by It’s Just (Household Essentials), a not-for-profit community interest company, with one paid member of staff and volunteers. Bamboo Bobbi sells bamboo toilet paper and for every roll sold it donates a roll of recycled toilet paper to a UK foodbank. The company donates 100% of its profits and has so far supplied 342,000 toilet rolls to UK foodbanks.

Bazoo makes 100% FSC-certified bamboo toilet paper and are plastic free.

Bumboo makes 100% FSC-certified bamboo toilet paper.

Cheeky Panda is a British company which sells bamboo toilet paper.

Clean Sheet is a new entrant to the market and sells bamboo toilet paper and has pledged to donate 100% of its profits to organisations fighting for system change. 

Greencane makes bamboo toilet paper.

Honest Supplies makes 100% post-consumer recycled toilet paper from the UK. The company was founded after the owners took part in Plastic Free July challenge. 

Kind Behind is a brand of Friendly Soap, a company based in Yorkshire which is a Best Buy for its soaps, and is now making bamboo toilet paper.

Naked Paper sells post-consumer recycled toilet paper and other paper products, along with bamboo toilet paper. The processing of its toilet paper is done by its supplier in Spain. It has taken many steps to become more environmentally sustainable, and transparent about its claims, backed up with evidence. 

Nova Tissues  is an independent, family-owned company based in Oldham, Greater Manchester, and sells toilet paper under the brands Cushion, Gentille, and Soft on Nature. Its Soft on Nature brand is made from 100% post-consumer recycled pulp.

Serious Tissues sells UK-made recycled toilet paper and other recycled paper products including kitchen roll and facial tissues. It claims to plant one tree for every toilet roll sold.

Who Gives A Crap is an Australian company which sells both bamboo and recycled paper toilet paper. 

Israel-Palestine

The following companies scored full marks in our Israel-Palestine rating because they had also taken some affirmative action to support Palestine:

• Essential
• Clean Sheet
• Greencane
• Nova

Most companies scored 80/100. This score means that a company doesn’t have any links to the Israeli state, but it also wasn’t doing anything to support Palestine (such as boycotting goods from Israel).

Kimberly-Clark (Andrex) only scored 40/100 because it had subsidiaries located in Israel.

Tax conduct

All but two companies received full marks in our tax conduct category, the exceptions being Essity and Kimberly Clark, which scored 0/100. 

Despite being headquartered in Sweden, we found Essity had subsidiaries we considered to be high risk in the Netherlands, a tax haven.

Kimberly-Clark had subsidiaries in a number of tax havens, including Panama, Trinidad & Tobago, and the Cayman Islands. Its Cayman Islands subsidiary is called Kimberly-Clark Patriot Holdings. What’s more patriotic than setting up a subsidiary in a tax haven?

Debate: recycled vs bamboo toilet paper

At Ethical Consumer we believe that recycled is the better option, but FSC-certified bamboo is generally better than toilet paper made from virgin tree pulp.

But still, we thought it would be interesting to let two parties argue it out.

So, we selected one brand that exclusively sells recycled toilet paper (Serious Tissues) and one that exclusively sells bamboo toilet paper (Cheeky Panda).

By pure coincidence, the representatives from both parties are named Chris, but one wipes with recycled and the other with bamboo: Serious Chris vs Cheeky Chris.

We asked both to give an initial statement on why they thought their material of choice was superior from an ethical perspective. We then asked each to respond to the other’s initial statement.

Team Recycled: Initial statement from Serious Tissues Chris

Team Bamboo: Initial statement from Cheeky Panda Chris

Team Recycled: Serious Chris responds to Cheeky Chris

Team Bamboo: Cheeky Chris responds to Serious Chris

Energy required to make pulp

The International Energy Agency (IEA) states that overall, using recycled pulp requires less energy, but it is still often from fossil fuels.

We have asked all the recycled paper companies in the guide if they know where their recycled paper has been processed and will publish any responses on our website.

Quick summary of ethical and sustainable toilet paper 

If you find all the options confusing, then here's our summary of what to look for when buying toilet paper:

FAQ summaries

Here are some typical questions that people ask about toilet paper. 

What hidden environmental costs are associated with cheap toilet paper?

There are several hidden environmental costs associated with cheap toilet paper. 

A lot of toilet paper is still made using virgin pulp. That means trees have been cut down specifically to turn the wood into pulp to make toilet paper. This can have an impact on biodiversity, soil erosion and habitat loss. 

What are the environmental impacts of conventional toilet paper production?

The environmental impacts of making conventional toilet paper include the impact on land and carbon emissions. 

Making conventional toilet paper from trees involves chopping down trees, processing the wood to make pulp, and then processing the pulp to make different products like toilet paper.

A number of different chemicals are involved in the processing stages, especially if the fibres are bleached to look extra white, or if scents are added to the toilet paper.

Energy is also used to power the processes, so unless the factories are using renewable energy, fossil fuels will be used. 

How does toilet paper production contribute to deforestation and carbon emissions?

Use of virgin tree pulp to make toilet paper can contribute to deforestation and carbon emissions. 

This is because trees are cut down to make virgin tree pulp. Our calculations indicate just under 1m trees are felled globally every day for “household and sanitary” paper products, we expect that toilet paper accounts for a large proportion.

Although much of this will come from plantations that are logged and then replanted, it takes it takes time for forests to regrow and their condition after regeneration may vary. And even in managed or planted forests, animals lose habitat and roads need to be made through the forest for the vehicles and industrial machinery. 

And it is likely that some toilet paper from virgin tree pulp (particularly if it isn't certified by the FSC) will still be coming from native forest that may not be managed properly and result in more permanent deforestation. However, it is important to note that that most permanent deforestation is caused by animal agriculture, particularly making land for cattle grazing.

How can I verify ethical claims on toilet paper packaging (labels, certificates, traceability)?

To verify ethical claims on toilet paper packaging check what wording and logos are used. 

If you are buying toilet paper made from virgin tree pulp or bamboo (basically any toilet paper that isn't fully made from recycled paper), we recommend looking for the FSC-certified logo. When it comes to paper and wood, FSC certification is the strongest third-party certification scheme, ensuring that trees or bamboo is harvested sustainably. 

If you're unsure about a company's claim on the packaging, look at their website for further information, and ask them if you can't find what you're looking for. 

Certifications for eco-friendly toilet paper

Certifications for eco-friendly toilet paper mainly cover the fibres used to make the product. 

In this guide we recommend looking for 100% post consumer waste or recycled paper toilet roll. 

Or if you buy bamboo toilet paper, we recommend looking for the FSC-certified logo.

Is bamboo toilet paper truly sustainable?

Whether bamboo toilet paper is truly sustainable is open to debate - see the debate above between two different brands! 

Toilet paper made from bamboo has generally been considered a more sustainable alternative than virgin tree fibre.

 However, recent studies have cast doubt on this, mainly because bamboo comes from China, and processing it there (most of the processing is done in China) is carbon intensive due to the relatively high amount of coal used to make China's electricity. However, there are many variables at play. If a bamboo processing plant used renewable energy to power its operations, it would be a lot more sustainable than one which used electricity from China's main electricity grid.

Comparison of bamboo vs. recycled vs virgin tree toilet paper: which is more sustainable?

Virgin tree paper is the least sustainable. There is no reason to chop down trees to make toilet paper as good alternatives are easily available.

Whether bamboo or recycled toilet paper is more sustainable depends on what criteria you use and your viewpoint. 

The arguments put forward in the debate above highlight some of the complex issues. 

On balance, Ethical Consumer considers toilet paper made from recycled pulp to be the most sustainable and ethical choice. This is mainly because no additional plants have been cut down to make it (virgin, plantation, or bamboo), uses less energy and water in production, and uses paper that might otherwise be sent to landfill.

Zero-waste toilet paper solutions for environmentally-committed individuals

If you want a zero-waste solution for using the toilet and want to avoid all paper products completely, it's possible to use alternatives like water. This is what billions of people around the globe do. 

Some people also may use reusable cloths (although this requires additional things such as tubs and cleaning fluids, plus time).

Are there any affordable ethical toilet paper brands?

Yes, there are affordable ethical toilet paper brands available. 

In our price comparison table, many of the high scoring ethical brands are cheaper than brands like Andrex.

If you are shopping in supermarkets, look for own-brand toilet paper which is 100% recycled paper.