{"id":668403,"date":"2026-01-02T06:23:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T06:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/668403\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T06:23:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T06:23:11","slug":"opinion-how-you-can-help-save-boreal-forests-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/668403\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | How You Can Help Save Boreal Forests in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

North America\u2019s boreal forests are crucial for wildlife<\/a> and the climate, but we\u2019re literally trashing them to make pulp for toilet paper and other disposable paper products.<\/p>\n

Companies are clear-cutting a million acres a year, according to a new report<\/a> from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The northern boreal forests are Earth\u2019s largest terrestrial biome. They\u2019re the breeding grounds for 3-5 billion migrating birds that populate our backyards. And they\u2019re a key carbon sink, storing 20% of global forest carbon and 50% of global soil carbon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Studies show<\/a> these forests have been overharvested and degraded to such a degree that the ecological damage will be difficult to reverse. They\u2019re increasingly beset by global warming<\/a>, melting permafrost<\/a>, fires (including multi-year, spontaneously reigniting \u201czombie fires<\/a>\u201d), and pests, which threaten to destroy them and release their carbon back into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

If every American bought just one roll of toilet paper made from recycled paper rather than a conventional forest-fiber roll, it would save 1.6 million trees, 1 billion gallons of water<\/a>, and 800 million pounds of greenhouse gases.<\/p>\n

The United Nations<\/a> recently warned<\/a> of an approaching tipping point that could turn them from carbon sinks to carbon sources. That would be catastrophic. The recent COP30 climate summit, held in Brazil\u2019s Amazon rainforest<\/a>, was billed as \u201cthe forest COP<\/a>.\u201d But its outcomes were dubious for tropical forests\u2014and nonexistent for boreal forests.<\/p>\n

But if climate delegates don\u2019t protect them, consumers can\u2014by buying 100% recycled or alternative fiber products instead of toilet paper made from virgin forest pulp.<\/p>\n

A market for these alternatives is emerging. The US toilet paper industry is worth $42 billion, but a whopping 68% of US consumers<\/a> surveyed want eco-friendly toilet paper made from recycled pulp, bamboo, or cornstalks.<\/p>\n

If every American bought just one roll of toilet paper made from recycled paper rather than a conventional forest-fiber roll, it would save 1.6 million trees, 1 billion gallons of water, and 800 million pounds of greenhouse gases\u2014the equivalent of taking 72,000 cars off the road for a year, NRDC found.<\/p>\n

Eco-friendly toilet paper start-ups have a $1 billion toehold on the overall market so far\u2014little more than 2%. But they\u2019re growing fast<\/a>. Imagine how many trees, how much water, and how many emissions we\u2019d save if they gained a 68% share.<\/p>\n

The big paper companies are imagining it, too. Procter & Gamble (P&G) makes Charmin, the top US toilet paper brand. This year it launched a bamboo version. That gives the company a green-sounding talk point, and a theoretical way into the growing alternative market. But it isn\u2019t really available in stores and doesn\u2019t do anything to change P&G\u2019s bad practices.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s well documented<\/a> that P&G makes regular Charmin by clear-cutting Canadian boreal forests for pulp, cutting down old-growth groves that have stood for a century or more. Only about 20%<\/a> of these old-growth trees are left.<\/p>\n

Any remnant wood left (called \u201cslash\u201d) after logging gets burned, and the land gets plowed and sprayed with glyphosate<\/a> (RoundUp<\/a>), eradicating formerly diverse ecosystems that caribou and birds depend on. They\u2019re replaced with monoculture plantations of softwood trees planted in tight rows, worsening vulnerability to wildfires<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet P&G has the chutzpah to claim its slash-and-burn practices \u201cabsolutely prohibit deforestation\u201d and \u201cincorporate sustainability.\u201d No wonder the company is being sued for greenwashing<\/a>, with plaintiffs demanding it be held accountable for \u201cegregious environmental destruction of the largest intact forest in the world\u201d and making \u201cfalse and misleading claims of environmental stewardship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately though, the power to change practices resides with consumers, not courts. Some 90 million Americans<\/a> buy regular Charmin\u2014and another 5 billion consumers worldwide<\/a> buy P&G products. Collectively they have enormous power, provided they\u2019re alerted to the problem and aren\u2019t fooled by greenwashing tactics.<\/p>\n

But if those conditions are met, consumers can save the boreal forests, one roll at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"North America\u2019s boreal forests are crucial for wildlife and the climate, but we\u2019re literally trashing them to make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[4675,47451,26514,3927,728,25814,11479,195596,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-668403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-biodiversity","9":"tag-climate-emergency","10":"tag-consumers","11":"tag-deforestation","12":"tag-environment","13":"tag-forests","14":"tag-greenwashing","15":"tag-natural-resources-defense-council","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115824073252269162","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}