Once reserved for Europeans, bidets are now popular all over the world - except in North America. Pictured: A toilet and bidet in a Westin Hotel in Italy.
Image: Brandi Sims, courtesy Flickr.
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Dear EarthTalk: Wouldn't a return to installing bidets in bathrooms at home go a long way toward cutting disposable tissue use and saving forests?
—Peter K., Albany, Ga.
Besides being more sanitary than toilet tissue, bidets—those squirty accessories so popular in Europe, Japan and elsewhere that clean your underside using a jet of water—are also much less stressful on the environment than using paper.
Justin Thomas, editor of the website metaefficient.com, considers bidets to be “a key green technology” because they eliminate the use of toilet paper. According to his analysis, Americans use 36.5 billion rolls of toilet paper every year, representing the pulping of some 15 million trees. Says Thomas: “This also involves 473,587,500,000 gallons of water to produce the paper and 253,000 tons of chlorine for bleaching.” He adds that manufacturing requires about 17.3 terawatts of electricity annually and that significant amounts of energy and materials are used in packaging and in transportation to retail outlets.
To those who say that bidets waste water, advocates counter that the amount is trivial compared to how much water we use to produce toilet paper in the first place. Biolife Technologies, manufacturer of the high-end line of Coco bidets, says the amount of water used by a typical bidet is about 1/8th of a gallon, with the average toilet using about four gallons per flush. Lloyd Alter of the website treehugger.com reports that making a single roll of toilet paper requires 37 gallons of water, 1.3 kilowatt/hours (KWh) of electricity and some 1.5 pounds of wood. Thomas points out that toilet paper is also a public nuisance in that it clogs pipes and adds a significant load onto city sewer systems and water treatment plants.
“Basically, the huge industry of producing toilet paper could be eliminated through the use of bidets,” offers Thomas, who has been testing different toilet-seat mounted units for the past two years. He would like to someday pair a bidet with a composting sawdust toilet for the ultimate green bathroom experience.
Once reserved for Europeans, bidets are now popular all over the world—except in North America. Thomas reports that 60 percent of Japanese households today have high-tech bidets made by Toto called Washlets, while some 90 percent of Venezuelan homes have bidets. Most people use a small amount of paper to dry their posteriors after the bidet has done its job, but more expensive air-drying models dispense with the need for paper altogether. Thomas adds that bidets provide important health benefits such as increased cleanliness and “the therapeutic effect of water on damaged skin (think rashes or hemorrhoids).”
On the public health front, bidet maker BioRelief reports that almost 80 percent of all infectious diseases are passed on by human contact and that only about half of us actually wash our hands after using the facilities—making hands-free bidets a safer alternative all around. “If you don’t have to use your hands at all then there is less chance of passing or coming in contact with a virus,” claims the company. BioRelief’s full featured BidetSpa sells for $549, but Lloyd Alter reports that consumers willing to go without heated water and air-drying mechanisms can get a perfectly adequate one they can install themselves for less than $100, such as the Blue Bidet, which retails for just $69.
CONTACTS: MetaEfficient, www.metaefficient.com; Treehugger, www.treehugger.com; Biolife Technologies, www.biolifetechnologies.com; Toto, www.totousa.com; Blue Bidet, www.bluebidet.com.
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33 Comments
Add CommentThe Washlet was actually invented by Arnold Cohen, an American, after WWII. When he couldn't get anyone in the US interested, he sold the design to Toto. He still lives in Florida and is known as Mr. Bidet. When factoring out those in abject poverty in countries like India and Brazil, the ownership and use of bidets in most of the world except North America top 80% and in some countries 90%. We are considered dirty by a lot of the world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy comment s are as follows:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw
36.5 billion rolls per year is 100 million rolls a day, or one third of a roll per person per day. I'd like to see the evidence of this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo Bidets just appear, and do not need any resources to make? Not one sentence talks about the environmental impact of making Bidets. What fires the furnaces in the Kiln? What chemicals are used in the Glazing? What metals for the fittings?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suggest you fly Air France or Lufthansa in July before you pass judgment. Please elaborate on those who find us dirty.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbout the same as making a regular toilet....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbout the same as a regular toilet.....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThink Halloween TP-ing the principles house, substitute for tissue, wasteful kids. The number probably is not far off . I assume that in their study they specify jumbo roll or economy roll.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for this article. It's a lot more interesting than all the climate change drivel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting. I spent the better part of a year temping at a GP mill where 100% of the paper products (TP, toweling, napkins, etc.) are made from RECYCLED paper - no virgin pulp whatsoever. Mills such as this are generally located on rivers. Currently, water is drawn from the river, used, treated and returned to the river cleaner than it came out. (A definite improvement over past practices!)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn this case, the trees & water 'consumed' are an illusion based upon the author's prejudices, not supported by the facts. That leaves the energy (coal), packaging & transportation for the purposes of comparison.
Now, I can't say if this is the exception or the rule, for the industry, but it does go to show what is possible. It also leaves the author's sweeping claims in some doubt. How thoroughly were these claims researched?
i live in Thailand, where most toilets are equipped with a spray unit--a $5 substitute for a bidet. i think this is a far better answer to the problem since you don't have to move from toilet to bidet, and takes no extra room. it can be retrofitted to any toilet by anyone who can figure out how to work a pair of pliers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisstan
Dedicated anus cloth and water, people. Works for me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd what say the author regarding disposable diapers, children and adults, which is basically toilet paper you wear?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is the substitute for these resource intensive, landfill hogging items?
@sparcboy: The author would say those items are beyond the scope of this article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBidets aren't much more popular in UK than USA, either, though I've seen (and suffered from the consequences of) plenty of dirty toilet habits in other countries where the 'left-hand rule' applies quite strictly. Having got into the habit of washing after the toilet during travels to India and on expeditions, I dislike the 'paper only' layout of most UK/US toilets. There are plenty of low-cost and aesthetically-acceptable ways to have washing facilities beside the toilet without installing a bidet: Japanese high-tech toilets are great for entertainment though!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNice piece, pity that the real hard science must be wrong. What does this leave as the trustworthyness of the rest of the story?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this* "about 17.3 terawatts of electricity annually". This is the wrong unit: "power per time". Human energy consumption is about 17.3 terawatts, and apparently this uses as much in electricity, and thereby also "annually"!
* "1.3 kilowatt/hours (KWh)" wrong unit again. The unit is "kWh" with lowercase k, and that is not kilowatt PER hour, but kilowatt TIMES the number of hours.
Some supposed, neat-freak woman was on a morning show and she had her home tested for bacteria, they found e-coli all over her phones, door knobs, etc. Apparently her long luscious nails had the habit of breaking the toilet paper and scooping a bit of poop when she wiped and she neglected to scrub under her nails. NASSSSSTY!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't look at long nails on a woman the same since i saw that.
As far as a bidet, I travelled extensively in Scandinavia and never once saw a bidet. On my trip to Wales, England and Ireland, i never once saw a bidet. So they're not as ubiquitous as this article asserts. In Italy, certainly! My italian friend is in the States now and hates the lack of bidets...he says, "my ass is filthy!! i have to take a bath every time i take a s***!!" :D) there is a technique to effective use of toilet paper that he's not mastered yet!
You're a lot cleaner if you relax and wait for your colon to push out the last of the last...people that force it out and are in a hurry are probably nasty 10 minutes later anyway, no matter what method they use to clean up.
Bidets are without a doubt a much more effective and earth friendly solution to toilet paper, and anyone who huffs and puffs to the contrary is an ignorant fool. Just because you don't like the concept in no way makes it an inferior means of removing the waste from your posterior.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObviously, the correct action is to genetically engineer ourselves to have an "ovipositor" like appendage. Why aren't my tax dollars going toward that?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Japanese Toilet is really a toilet bidet combination and although nice is also very expensive. You can keep your current toilet and get the same benefits by adding a hand bidet sprayer for very little cost. A hand held bathroom bidet sprayer is so much better than a stand alone bidet and this is why: 1. It's less expensive (potentially allot less) 2.You can install it yourself = no plumber expense 3. It works better by providing more control of where the water spray goes and a greater volume of water flow. 4. It requires no electricity and there are few things that can go wrong with it. Available at http://www.bathroomsprayers.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Japanese Toilet is really a toilet bidet combination and although nice is also very expensive. You can keep your current toilet and get the same benefits by adding a hand bidet sprayer for very little cost. A hand held bathroom bidet sprayer is so much better than a stand alone bidet and this is why: 1. It's less expensive (potentially allot less) 2.You can install it yourself = no plumber expense 3. It works better by providing more control of where the water spray goes and a greater volume of water flow. 4. It requires no electricity and there are few things that can go wrong with it. Available at http://www.bathroomsprayers.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho cares about how many trees we use because the popular belief today is to burn them all rather than make any beneficial use of any forest products! Take note of the earlier comment pointing out that TP is one of the main opportunities to use recycled paper. As long as the low volume toilets have been required I believe the 4 gallon average is high.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm less ashamed of our consumption of "trees" as toilet paper than I am every time two of us return our trays at a fast food joint. Now that's a lot of paper for little utility!
Are bidets for women only? Whenever I see them they are always with a regular toilet?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI live in California and I made the switch from toilet paper to a Bidet and I'm glad I need. I got mine from the <ahref=http://www.oneclickkitchenandbath.com?ck=f282fad5f3e85095cc7>Kitchen and Bath</a> section of www.oneclickkitchenandbath.com There they have a wide variety of Bidets to choose from. I recommend that if you make the switch like I did that you buy your bidet from the website posted above.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisscichick, mind your tongue..India is not abject poor country..look at the stupid America u live in..you don have bloody sense to use water to wash your asses instead u use tissues to wipe and leave that ass stinking..ewwww
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut what about the money the companies the sell the above products we wouldn't be using? Those are American jobs we are talking about killing here. Making money comes WAY before the environment (a distant second). SARCASM.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is Good Article
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisby the way now we are using a technology if you want to bought a bidet their is a website http://www.spaloo.com
visit and read more
This a nice post.<a href="http://www.toiletbidetseat.com/"></a>.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBesides the obvious slanted facts for the author's bias, I would add that the "trivial" amount of water used by a Bidet is in fact more than not using one and would contribute to even more water needing to be treated in sewage plants and etc... And for the air dry Bidets, don't those use electricity to blow air and heat it? I suspect flipping on the Bidet air dryer 2 to 4 times a day per person, probably uses a lot of energy over a year.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have seen the high tech Bidets in Japan, good luck trying to get it to work if you have not been trained to use it.
There is likely no over all difference in the use of a bidet over paper, expect for the loss of time the user has in having to operate the 'far more complex than toilet paper' contraption and waiting for your posterior to air dry. We all know how fast and well air driers work on your hands.
I am afraid that there is a terrible misinformation about the use of the bidet (especially in the US as it seems)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am Italian. Here we have a bidet in every house and nobody would ever think to live in an house without one.
The important point to understand about bidet is the following (please repeat with me):
The bidet is not a substitute for toilet paper at all!
You first clean yourself carefully with toilet paper and only afterwards you clean yourself even more with the bidet and a towel (and possibly soap).
Bidet is just a matter of hygiene, it is not for saving paper, water or any other natural resource.
Bidet is also very important for women's hygiene (it is used the other way around).
I encourage everybody outside of Italy to try it. You really feel clean and at ease after you use a bidet.
Once I lived in the US for one year and the absence of the bidet was really annoying (I had to take an half-shower every time I went to the toilet)
environmental concerns aside, there is no question that it is much cleaner to wash instead of, or in addition, to wiping. here's my analogy: if your pet dog pooped on your kitchen floor, would you only wipe it up with a paper towel?? or, would you bring something wet or moist or even soapy to clean it up with? our genitals and the anus deserve no less treatment. and certainly your sexual partner will very much prefer the cleanliness. as will you, if you convince your partner to participate in this exercise! all I can say is, try it! get up on your bathroom sink, butt over the bowl, and wash, with liquid soap (I prefer Dr. Bronners, it has no chemicals to irritate you). after you do this for awhile, I guarantee you will never feel properly cleaned again, and you will avoid public restrooms for this reason alone. guess what, too, guys, you won't have to wear underwear again!! a real plus if that piece of garment bothers you...(I'm not sure that applies to women, though...:-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislastly, if you still have doubts, take a wet wipe like what is used for wiping kids with, or a moist wash cloth, and wipe yourself after you've cleaned your rear as best as you can with dry TP and discover what is still left behind. that's how I convinced my wife!! meanwhile, our 5 year old still prefers to be washed after he poops, too!! been doing it his whole life...
Honestly, I really don’t understand how some people can be so anti doing a little bit to improve the way we run our lives. You don’t have to be a scientist or that smart to realize a ton of trees are cut down every year which could be avoided, or at least reduced. Whether it is 15 million trees cut every year or 7.5 million, either way it’s going to be a huge amount of trees. I personally have recently switched to the bum gun bidet sprayer and love it. I still buy toilet paper for cleaning make off, still have it in my bathroom for guests etc, and use it myself to dab dry if I’m fully dressed. But probably 80% less than I used to. The bum gun is also ideal for females as we require that extra bit of cleanliness, and I would NEVER go back to use only toilet paper. It’s not so hard to do a little bit for our world is it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI love saving energy and I love being green but the facts don't match. If the facts don't match people won't believe your messages.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou said we used 473,587,500,000 gallons of water to produce 36.5 billion rolls of toilet paper. That equates to 12.975 gallons per roll. Later you quoted a source that said we use 37 gallons to make a single roll. The math doesn't work. I think 12 gallons is way too much for a single roll but should I even believe that number?
Also the article said the average toilet uses 4 gallons of water. Where in North American can you buy a toilet that uses more than 1.8 gallons per flush? The old ones use 3.5-4 gallons but that would not make the "average" 4 gallons per flush. Yeah, we should probably use bidets here but facts matter.