On Nov. 3, Greenpeace, the National Resources Defense Council and the Kleercut campaign sponsored a National Day of Action opposing Kimberly-Clark, the largest manufacturer of tissue products in the world. Why?
Kimberly-Clark produces facial tissues, toilet paper, napkins and paper towels. Among its famous signature brands are Kleenex, Scott, Cottonelle and Viva.
This company poses a serious threat to the environment of North America. Kimberly-Clark uses previously unharmed trees from our continent's ancient Boreal forest and others to make its products, with a very small portion of its purely disposable goods being made from recycled materials. The products in all of these divisions are not durable enough for reuse and are non-recyclable as well.
In order to provide pulp for these paper products, Kimberly-Clark uses about 3.3 million tons of virgin tree fiber every year instead of using recycled fiber. Kleenex Facial Tissue, for instance, is manufactured exclusively with virgin fiber. On its Kleenex Web site, Kimberly-Clark boasts about this fact, claiming that its products are softer when made in this way than if they had been created with recycled fiber.
However, other companies such as Seventh Generation make similar products of comparable quality and price that come from 100 percent recycled fiber sources. Meanwhile, less than 19 percent of Kimberly-Clark's entire line of disposable tissue products comes from recycled pulp, well below the overall industry average of about 60 percent.
At the heart of this issue is the fact that Kimberly-Clark clears ancient forests for the manufacture of these products. An equivalent of the area of a soccer field of ancient forest is lost worldwide every two seconds. In particular, North America's largest remaining ancient forest, the Boreal, is being logged extensively. The Boreal, which represents a quarter of the world's remaining ancient forests, contains trees that are upwards of 180 years old that are clearcut to be used directly in products that will be used once and immediately thrown away. Some areas of this forest, which stretches from Alaska and Canada's westernmost provinces to its east coast, have existed for 10,000 years. It is a habitat for hundreds of wildlife species such as grizzly bears and bald eagles and Canada's forests also serve as the site of communities that are home to hundreds of thousands of indigenous people.
Despite Kimberly-Clark's claims that it sustainably manages forests, it does not meet the standards of the Forest Stewardship Council. The corporation has admitted to logging its pulp from intact ancient forests, much of which has been clearcut to leave a barren landscape inhospitable to the wildlife that previously inhabited it. These forests are also ecologically important for climate control and high value must be placed on the social and cultural values they provide to their surrounding communities and the world. One box of Kleenex takes roughly 90 years to grow and is quickly disposed of by a short bout of cold or flu.
Kimberly-Clark should commit itself to responsible standards of sustainable forestry. Kimberly-Clark has a responsibility to inventory and make public the practices of its suppliers. Furthermore, it should disclose the other various sources of the fiber used to make its products. It must end its use of pulp logged from ancient forests, which the FSC labels as unsustainable, and drastically increase its use of recycled fiber in its products.
Kimberly-Clark makes about 4 million tons of disposable products annually and generates about $14.3 billion in sales. Consumers also have a responsibility to communicate to Kimberly-Clark that its ecologically unfriendly practices are intolerable. We cannot afford to blow our noses on our ancient forests or to flush them down the toilet. There are several alternatives on the market, which use a majority of recycled fiber, such as Seventh Generation and Cascades. The Brown community should take advantage of these alternatives, which are provided at stores like Whole Foods and Eastside Marketplace. We have an obligation to boycott Kimberly-Clark and urge the company to adopt more ecologically conscious methods of manufacture.
The efforts expended on that day should continue. We should not only boycott Kleenex and other Kimberly-Clark products, but we should furthermore petition Kimberly-Clark to stop clearcutting in the Boreal and other forests in an unsustainable manner, to start logging responsibly and to begin using recycled fiber in its tissues.
Cory McAlister '09 prefers to wipe his nose on his sleeve.
