Kamal Ghorui
To help save the planet, more people are switching from wipe to wash
TP or not TP; that is the question. Had Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, been around today, that’s the way he might have phrased his famous existential dilemma.
TP is the abbreviation for toilet paper that people in so-called advanced countries use to clean up, after having performed what in Indian parlance are referred to as morning ablutions.
East is East, and West is West, said Kipling, and the dividing line between the two is based not just on geographic location but on a practice of everyday personal hygiene: the West uses TP, the East uses water; one wipes, the other washes.
According to recent reports, the wipe-wash divide might soon be wiped out literally. The reason for this is based not on considerations of comparative personal cleanliness, but on the cleanliness of the planet as a whole.
While southern European countries like France and Italy have long provided the civilised amenity of the bidet adjacent to WC, English-speaking countries like US and UK, have remained resolutely water-free in this regard, compelling visitors from the East, particularly from the Indian subcontinent, furtively to smuggle bottles of drinking water into the cubicles of public toilets, making natives wonder if the practice is part of some religious ritual, which, in a sense, it is.
Environmentalists say that in US alone, by far, the most prodigal user of TP, this single lavatorial product is a $50bn industry, which gobbles up entire forests every day to supply the wood pulp from which TP is made.
Now the clarion call of environmentalism is weighing in on the paperless loo in the wake of the paperless office as an issue, or tissue, of environmental responsibility.
The question that arises is: after TP what? European style bidets are being mooted as an admittedly expensive alternative, requiring major re-plumbing work. A simpler and cheaper option is what is termed a ‘hand-held shower spray’, similar to the Indian hygiene faucet, which in urban locales has long replaced the traditional brass lota.
One way or another, it’s RIP for TP, which will meet its Water-loo.
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