Environmental Benefits of Using a Bidet

Bidets – Environmental Benefits

Many people choose to install a bidet for hygienic reasons. With a small stream of water, a bidet is able to clean the genital area much more efficiently than toilet paper. There’s another good reason to consider installing a bidet, however. One of the great benefits of using bidet products is that this method of personal hygiene is more environmentally friendly than toilet paper. Toilet paper use is so common in theUnited Statesthat many people probably don’t think about how much toilet paper they’re actually using. Each year, Americans use about 36.5 billion rolls of toilet paper, representing 15 million trees.

Some people may try to counter the argument that bidets are more environmentally friendly by bringing up the water that is used by this type of installation. While it is true that a bidet may add to your personal home water use marginally, this is a very small amount. The manufacturing process used to make toilet paper uses water as well. Each year, 473,587,500,000 gallons of water are used in the making of toilet paper. In comparison to the water used to produce toilet paper, bidets use much less water for personal cleaning. Most bidets spray for only 15 seconds.

When examining the environmental benefits of bidet use, it’s also important to look at the big picture of toilet paper manufacturing. Not only are 15 million trees cut down, and 473 billion gallons of water used to make the paper, 17 billion Kilowatt hours of electricity are required for the process as well. Then the paper must be packaged in plastic wrapping, boxed up into cardboard boxes for distribution, loaded onto trucks, and transported to stores throughout the country. Everything from the gas used to drive the truck to the tape wasted in packing the boxes should be considered as part of toilet paper production.

This entire manufacturing process for toilet paper can be greatly reduced by using a bidet instead. All those tons of paper waste can be replaced with a simple stream of water. Environmentally conscious consumers cannot fail to see the merit in this method of attaining personal hygiene. Best of all, using a bidet instead of toilet paper requires no sacrifice in personal hygiene. Bidets are actually much cleaner and more efficient than toilet paper. Bidets are available for as little as $400 and will quickly pay for themselves when you reduce your need to buy toilet paper throughout the year.