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The people growing their own toilet paper
One million trees worldwide are cut down each year to make toilet paper. Is it more sustainable to grow your own?
In Meru, a town in eastern Kenya, a lush, leafy plant sways over the landscape. Benjamin Mutembei, a Meru resident, is growing the Plectranthus barbatus plant – not for food, but to use as toilet paper. He started growing the plant in 1985. “I learned about it from my grandfather and have been using it ever since. It’s soft and has a nice smell,” he says.
Plectranthus barbatus is a leafy plant that can grow up to 2m (6.6ft) tall. Its leaves are roughly the size of an industrial toilet paper square and emit a minty, lemony fragrance. Covered in tiny hairs, the leaves have a soft texture. This plant thrives in warm tropical temperatures and partial sunlight and is widely grown across Africa, where it is sometimes used to demarcate property boundaries.
This has been an African tissue for a long time, and everyone in my household uses the plant. I only buy modern toilet rolls when the leaves have all been plucked,” Mutembei say