Bamboo is a solution for the emissions and environmental damage associated with paper production. Bamboi is forest-friendly, sustainable toilet paper that contributes to a better world. In this article, we'll tell you more about Bamboi's paper production process and how our bamboo toilet paper is made.
From bamboo to fiber to paper
The production process of bamboo toilet paper starts with bamboo fibers. To obtain fibers from a tree or bamboo stem, the raw materials are first cut into chips. The chips are then mixed in a tank with a mixture of water and sodium hydroxide. The chips along with the mixture are cooked, after which the composition will separate. This creates slurry. The slurry is then washed, filtered, and refined before being passed through a paper machine. Every product with pulp production undergoes the process of mixing sodium hydroxide and water together with the chips.
It is often thought that sodium hydroxide is a toxic chemical. Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) is made from sodium chloride, or table salt. Sodium hydroxide is therefore a natural ingredient that has gotten a bad reputation due to its high pH value. It is a corrosive substance that must be handled safely, but it is environmentally friendly and 100% biodegradable.
Sodium hydroxide is necessary to separate the lignin - the wood substance of cellulose - from the fibers. All chemicals used in this process remain in a closed loop. After the separation process, bamboo is exclusively washed, filtered, and refined with water. Our supplier has a water treatment plant that purifies all the dirty water washed from the bamboo. After all the dirty water is purified, the water is so clean that even fish and other organisms can live in it. To prove this, there is a tank with fish at the end of the water treatment plant that is fed with the production water.
After the mixing process, bamboo meets all hygiene requirements. This ensures that the bonds in the fibers are not damaged, resulting in strong fibers and preserving the natural softness of bamboo. As a result, our bamboo toilet paper is strong and soft even when unbleached and without added chemicals.
After the fibers are separated from the lignin, they are filtered with a sieve. The size of the holes in the sieve determines how large the fibers become. The holes must be small enough to sieve out the lignin. This is where bamboo makes a difference. Bamboo comes out of the sieve much stronger because bamboo is more flexible than wood, for example. This results in longer fibers than with wood, and longer fibers make for stronger paper.
Bamboo production against deforestation and difference with wood fibers
One of the biggest advantages of bamboo products is that bamboo grows quickly. Bamboo can grow at a speed of up to 91 cm per day, making it the fastest-growing plant in the world (Guinness World Records, 2022). Within two to three months, a bamboo shoot can grow 30 meters. For use as a raw material, bamboo can be harvested within a few years. In the case of bamboo toilet paper, that's three years. During harvesting, the roots remain intact and the bamboo grows back from the same shoot; bamboo is a self-fertilizing plant. By harvesting at three years of age, the bamboo forest makes room for other bamboo shoots to grow faster again. This means that harvesting can be done annually without deforestation if 33 percent of a three-year-old bamboo forest is cut down each year.
Image from van der Lugt, 2017
Three years is impressive compared to other tree species such as pine trees and oaks, which are also used for paper production. Pine trees, for example, need 30 years before they can be harvested, and oaks even 80 years. Additionally, the tree species typically used for paper production are responsible for water and soil loss. Bamboo, on the other hand, is a natural protector of water, soil, and forests. Bamboo protects land use and can even grow on degraded land. Bamboo ensures that rainforests don't need to be deforested and that paper products can be produced without deforestation.
Growing a tree thus takes much longer than growing bamboo. Bamboo grows faster, needs less water and energy, and uses no chemicals for bleaching, softening, and washing the paper. Making wood fibers, on the other hand, costs a lot of energy, water, and time. Bamboi is made from the bamboo species Neosincalamus Affinis, a non-invasive bamboo species.
Wood pulp factories are very large installations and are there to separate the lignin from the cellulose as well as possible. Only new raw materials can be used for this process. Wood fibers can be recycled up to eight times, but when wood fibers are used to make toilet paper, that obviously doesn't happen. Annually, in the Netherlands alone, at least 200 million kilograms of toilet paper made from wood fibers is flushed down the toilet, making it impossible to assess whether they could have been used more often.
In summary, it is logical that fibers derived from trees are used to make products that can be recycled, to get the maximum out of the fibers. Think, for example, of packaging or cardboard cups. For toilet paper, a rapidly renewable raw material, such as bamboo, is more suitable. Generally speaking: the sturdier the material, the longer the fiber needs to be so that the product doesn't break or tear as quickly.
Bamboi toilet paper versus recycled toilet paper
The production process of bamboo paper differs from recycled paper. These differences are mainly in CO2 emissions and storage, water consumption, and the use of chemicals or not. Below, these points are briefly highlighted.
CO2 emissions
The emissions from bamboo are minimal because little energy is needed. Because no additional chemicals are used in the production of unbleached bamboo paper, many steps are skipped. This makes the production process of bamboo paper faster and more efficient compared to the production of recycled paper. The CO2 emissions of Bamboi are 1.0835 kg CO2e per kg of bamboo paper compared to 1.11 kg CO2e per kg of recycled paper.
CO2 storage
Too much CO2 in the air changes the climate. Climate change is happening fast, and therefore CO2 storage is encouraged, and bamboo can play an important role in this. Recycled paper stores little to no CO2. Bamboo, on the other hand, does: a bamboo forest stores about 48 tons of CO2 per ha per year. Of these 48 tons, 50% is stored in the ground and 50% in the stems. The paper is made from the stems, and the stored CO2 in this remains in the paper until it decomposes in, for example, the sewer, as compost, or in a landfill. We have not included these in our calculations. The CO2 storage of a kg of bamboo paper is -4.08 kg CO2e compared to 0 kg CO2e for a kg of recycled toilet paper.
Water consumption
The exact water consumption of recycled paper is not known, but it is said that one can assume about 0.5 liters per roll. For paper production without recycled water, that's 15 liters. This is 30 times as much. These processes are not transparent enough to make a judgment about. With bamboo, on the other hand, 35 liters of water are used for 1 kg of bamboo paper, and 96.5% of this is recycled. In the end, 1 kg of paper thus consumes 1.225 liters of water. For the Bamboi MAXI roll, this is 0.224 liters of water per roll compared to 0.5 liters of water per roll for recycled paper.
Biodegradable
An organic product is biodegradable. This means it can decompose in nature without damaging it with chemicals. Recycled paper uses chemicals to remove the ink and make the paper white again. Softeners are also used to make the paper soft and a starch mixture to make paper stronger. Bamboo toilet paper, on the other hand, is 100% biodegradable and contains no softeners or starch mixtures with additional chemicals.
In short, Bamboi is the paper of the future. Our paper is tree-free, chemical-free, hypoallergenic, and CO2 negative. Together with users and our partners, we make a positive impact on the environment with the simple switch to bamboo toilet paper. By delivering high-quality and sustainably produced toilet paper, companies and organizations no longer need to contribute to unnecessary deforestation and water use, CO2 emissions, and the use of chemical substances. Order our bamboo toilet paper here. Join the Bamboi revolution!
