Seacoast NRG

I had read this in numerous online sources, and had hoped that it wasn’t true.  But it does seem, at the very least, that the claims by Greenpeace and the NRDC are at least partially true:  namely, that Kimberly-Clark, the world’s largest manufacturer of paper tissue, has mislead the public with regard to its use of processing old-growth trees into tissue, toilet paper, and diapers.  Kimberly-Clark brands include Kleenex, Huggies, Scott, Pull-Ups, Cottonelle, Viva, Kotex and Depend, as well as brands used by industrial, commercial and institutional customers.

Greenpeace and the NDRC have claimed for some time that most of the pulp Kimberly-Clark uses for its disposable tissue products comes from unsustainable sources, including wood fiber from ancient forests in Ontario and along the Canadian Pacific coast, and that most of the consumer products Kimberly-Clark sells in stores, including Kleenex products, contain no recycled fiber at all.  Aside from whatever you may feel about the ethics of using virgin trees for mere toilet paper, the ancient forests are also home to countless species of wildlife.  The destruction of forestlands around the world is thought to be an important contributing factor to the increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases, and global warming.

For its part, Kimberly-Clark disputes the claims, and points to its record as a so-called “green” company.

This article from CNN and Money magazine, published in September 2006, supports many of the charges leveled by Greenpeace and the NRDC, and states that retailers such as Wal-Mart have also been asking Kimberly-Clark to clean up its act.