Issues: Wildlands

Giant paper producers including Kimberly-Clark -- the maker of Scott, Cottonelle, Kleenex and Viva tissue paper products -- are forcing the destruction of our continent's most vibrant forests, and devastating the habitat for countless wildlife species in the process. Instead of making better use of materials such as post-consumer recycled fiber and agricultural residue to meet the escalating demand for toilet paper, paper towels and other disposable tissue products, these companies buy virgin pulp from suppliers that reach deep into North American forests for timber, from northern Canada to the southeastern United States. To help halt this destruction, NRDC and other conservation groups are pressuring the tissue products industry to change its practices and educating consumers about the choices they have when buying tissue paper products.

Many U.S. tissue paper manufacturers operate in both the United States and Canada, and tree fiber, pulp and tissue paper products move across the border among logging operations, pulp mills, tissue paper mills and consumer markets. These companies rely on virgin fiber from the Canadian boreal forest, as well as from the biologically sterile tree plantations that are quickly taking the place of species-rich U.S. forests, especially those in the Southeast.

NRDC research has identified some of the tissue paper companies contributing to the destruction of these woodlands and is applying pressure to persuade them to adopt environmentally sound practices. Kimberly-Clark -- one of the largest tissue paper producers in the world, with offices, factories and mills in 37 countries -- uses more than 1.1 million cubic meters of trees from Canada's boreal forests each year to produce some 465,000 metric tons (equal to 512,575 tons) of pulp. Kimberly-Clark also buys pulp from companies that harvest trees from the boreal.

Kimberly-Clark relies on recycled sources for only 19 percent of the pulp it uses in North America to make toilet paper, facial tissue, napkins and paper towels for home use. Moreover, the company uses no recycled content at all to manufacture grocery store brands such as Kleenex and Scott. These practices are markedly different than those of companies such as Cascades, Canada's second largest tissue product manufacturer, which meets 96 percent of its pulp requirements with recycled fiber.

Each year, due to ongoing demand from Kimberly-Clark and other companies, clearcut logging claims half a million acres of Ontario and Alberta's boreal forest -- a primeval expanse of pine, spruce, fir and poplar trees that nourishes caribou, lynx, bear, wolves and scores of songbirds. Indigenous communities depend on the wildlife and plants of this forest for sustenance and medicine. The thick layers of moss, soil and peat of Canada's boreal, which stretches across the country's entire northern range, form one of the world's largest terrestrial storehouses of carbon dioxide and play a critical role in preventing global warming.

The Hinton Forest in western Alberta, much of which has been intact since the Ice Age, is prime habitat for the threatened woodland caribou. If the logging pictured here continues, scientists predict that local caribou herds could become extinct in less than 40 years.

The native forests of the southeastern United States also are vanishing at an alarming rate. These fragile ecosystems support dense stands of oak, hickory, black gum and red maple, and provide a haven for deer, fox and more than 230 fish species. But sprawling plantations of single-species pine are quickly taking the place of crucial forest habitat and food sources in this region. The southern United States now contains approximately half of the world's tree plantations, and due in part to increasing demand for paper products, the area of these plantations is expected to increase by 63 percent -- to 52 million acres -- by 2040. Some southeastern plantations supply Kimberly-Clark with fiber for its pulp.

Southeastern U.S. forests are home to more than 165 different tree species. But due to pulp demand, single-species pine plantations, like the one directly above, are rapidly replacing ecologically rich Southeastern forests.

Kimberly-Clark should help protect North America's remaining forests by making better use of forest friendly alternatives to virgin wood fiber. Some of its mills already use post-consumer wastepaper to make tissue paper products, but it sells the vast majority of these products only to commercial and industrial consumers.

Until Kimberly-Clark and other tissue paper manufacturers end their dependence on virgin fiber, North America's most ecologically rich forests will continue to be destroyed for paper throwaways.