Giving Compass' Take:

• Global Citizen writes about a new report that states America's massive toilet paper consumption is contributing to global warming, not only through waste but because of the logging of forests it takes to make it. 

• American consumers account for about a fifth of the world's tissue consumption. In what ways can innovators and funders help think of environmentally friendly alternatives? 

• Learn more about how damaging logging is to forest soil and our environment. 


NEW YORK, Feb. 20 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Americans use more toilet paper than anyone else in the world, helping destroy the habitats of native people who live where it is sourced and contributing to global warming, a research study said on Wednesday.

US consumers use roughly three rolls of toilet paper a week, accounting for a fifth of the world's tissue consumption, according to the report by environmental groups Stand.earth and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Single-use tissue products such as toilet paper used in the United States are made from wood pulp, mostly derived from logging in the old-growth northern, or boreal, forest in Canada, where logging companies clear cut more than a million acres (405,000 hectares) every year, the NRDC said.

The forest plays a key role in combating global warming because it absorbs and stores carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that contributes to it, the group said.

Read the full article about how toilet paper is a global warming contributor by Ellen Wulfhorst at Global Citizen.