“…I love French wine like I love the French language. I have sampled every language, French is my favorite—fantastic language, especially to curse with: Nom de Dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperies de connards d’enculés de ta mère. You see, it’s like wiping your arse with silk, I love it.”
(The Mérovingien in The Matrix 2. Watch Lambert Wilson and swoon…)
So this is about French and toilet paper.
Americans, evidently, do like to wipe their asses with silk. Or the next best thing. According to the ecogeek article Which Is Worse? Hummers Or Toilet Paper?, Americans use “three times more toilet paper than the average European.” (No, they’re not dirty, you’re just wasteful.) To add insult to injury, Americans prefer quilty, cushy TP for their tushies, which are obviously too good for recycled paper; more than 98% of the TP sold in America is from virgin wood. In Europe, on the other hand, nearly 40% of TP sold is made from recycled paper products. Sales of high-end brands are increasing in some US markets despite the deplorable state of the planet. And I won’t even start on how eco-unfriendly wipes must be…
Americans also evidently don’t want to learn French. In Minnesota, a state university has just decided to do away with the French degree program (German too, for that matter). A middle school in New York cites declining enrollment and budgetary constraints as the reasons why French classes are threatened…
(I’m from southern California and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say their kids are taking Spanish because it’s practical and at least they’ll be able to talk to their maids. I am not kidding.)
It could easily be argued that France contributed more to Western civilization than any single culture besides the ancient Greeks, but Americans are generally unaware of that. (Not that they would care if they knew. And they wouldn’t believe the French had invented the Monster Truck anyway…). They don’t realize the extent of France’s economic power, or its geopolitical importance. Americans have no idea that the French are practically the only people who still question everything. They’ve forgotten how important it is to do that.
I’ve always had the impression that Americans think of France as a place that was once an important country even though the men wore tights but that now it’s nothing more than a theme park for francophiles.
Back to toilet paper. Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council have published a handy comparative guide to TP brands (and paper towels, paper napkins and facial tissues) in the US, showing the environmental impact of each of them. You can even print it and fold it up so it’ll fit in your wallet. If you must. If you don’t think you can just remember the good brands to buy.
My advice: If you really want that silky sensation, learn French. And then buy TP made from recycled paper.
(Thanks to Marc Broussard for the tip on ecogeek.)
next time I was at the supermarket… even I never drive an Hummer … i have bough expensive recycled toilet paper for the first time in my life
Bravo Marc !
Great piece. Though of course I’m going to say that, as I’m a Brit who moved to France eight years ago.
I was going to say that the reason that the US use more TP is that most of them are full of s*@$, but that would be way too easy ;-)
Let me split my comment Pam:
- we all know most US citizens couldn’t care less about the environment. The country that fundamentally believed this planet was created by God to be harvested (and in the end, destroyed) by 300 million of the planet’s happy few creditcard shoppers cannot be trusted when it comes to ecology. Many Americans don’t even believe in man-induced global warming, so I rest my case.
- Countries with a dominant language have a tendency to believe they’ll get by on that dominant language, worldwide.
I’ve seen it with English speaking expats here in Belgium (“why learn Dutch or French? You all speak English”) (expats I’ve come to resent)
but I’ve also seen it abroad:
Russians in Turkey (“hey, we’re from a ‘large’ country”) were a recent eye-opener.
It’s a cultural phenomenon that is hard to change.
Guess I was one of the lucky ones: with Dutch being a minority language spoken by only 25 million (well, “Afrikaans” in South Africa is similar)
I had to learn French, English and German,
if only to understand my neighbors.
Off topic:
I get all the regular French TV station on Belgian cable. They all (most annoyingly) dub any non-French movie/show/program in French, erasing the original actor’s voice.
Belgium uses subtitling, enabling to enjoy the original program while causing “language immersion” that helped me a lot while learning French.
Brilliant post, Pam. And thanks for the handy chart.
How about those folded squares of French toilet paper that come in a stack? More eco-friendly, maybe, because you can’t “inadvertently” pull too much off the roll.
FWIW, I have a scrapbook from a school trip to Romania in the 1970s with souvenir samples of various toilet papers (okay, I was a teenager!), and trust me, none of it was fluffy or bleached or even vaguely soft. It was fine, though. It’s all a matter of what you get accustomed to vs.what the advertisers tell you you need.
And maybe we should all revert to the habit of using a lace-edged mouchoir.
Hi Gee.
I get so mad at America sometimes. I know there are other Americans like me, but I also know there aren’t enough of them for change to happen quickly enough without some catastrophic catalyst.
Thanks for the comment (and compliment) and nice to meet you!
Hi Peter.
I know, the stats I see on how many Americans don’t believe in evolution or global warming are all I need to know we’re doomed as long as the country’s still powerful.
But that won’t always be the case.
Hi Polly. Glad you enjoyed it. Did you watch the video?
An eccentric teenager! And I’m sure it seemed very exotic, since Euro TP has never been as soft as ours (in my experience).
I recall bringing a sanitary napkin disposal bag (unused!) home from Bangkok when I was 14 because it was printed with this dainty Gay ’90s ice-cream parlor-looking lady. Cracked me up. So I was weird too.
;-)
Congratulate me I just for the first time read your blog and went straight to the grocery store and bought 100% recycled tp, tissue and paper towels. I did however forget to bring in my bags so I had to use plastic, which of course I recycle. I hate Hummers and all those who drive them but I never thought I was just as bad with my paper products! Thank you so much for bringing it to our collective attention! My husband and I have also eschewed paper napkins and are using cloth napkins and also for more that one meal. You know not all Americans don’t believe in global warming and the negative impact it is having on our planet. Many of us are trying very hard so maybe everyone could quit bashing Americans for a while and not lump us all in one group. Thank you so much for the info and I promise I will continue to by the recycled stuff AND remember to bring in my shopping bags and also help spread the word! BTW great blog, I’ll be a regular.
How funny, the Minnesota article came from my alma mater’s newspaper. To be fair though, Winona is a small town (25,000 people) with a very small university, and the French program only had 7 people declared as majors. That’s really not enough to justify keeping the program open, especially given the economy. And given that MN has such a large Hispanic population, languages like Spanish just make more sense to keep around.
Hi Linda. Thank you so much for the feedback and bravo for getting the recycled paper products!
You are absolutely right that there are lots of Americans who believe and try. As I said in one of my earlier comments, I wish there were more!
Governments and institutions and businesses need to make it easier for individuals to act. For example, the mega apartment complex where my son lives doesn’t even provide recycling bins for residents! This kind of thing needs to change!
America is ahead of France in recycling plastic grocery bags. They don’t do that here. Deplorable!
I’m so glad to know you’ll be back. Very nice to meet you!
Hi ksam.
I have to disagree, despite the small size of the city and the college. It is the responsibility of a university system to privilege the important stuff over the practical stuff. Or the sports.
Kids need to learn the big ideas somewhere, and it ain’t happening in the public schools.
The French are historically really good at big ideas. When no one teaches you about the Enlightenment, you end up with a country in which half the people don’t believe in evolution: http://www.gallup.com/poll/114544/Darwin-Birthday-Believe-Evolution.aspx
The issue goes well beyond language instruction, although that’s important too; someone once said that if you speak two languages, you have two souls. The best thing that could happen to insular American minds would be to gain cultural awareness of other cultures. Only 20% of Americans even have passports. How else are they going to have their eyes and minds opened if not through formal education?
Not only is the material itself important, but universities also have a responsibility to instill in people a belief in the VALUE of the material. So when music and art are removed from an elementary school curriculum, those kids are getting the message that those things aren’t important. When French is nuked, people think it’s OK to blow off French and assume that it has no value. And that is just not true.
In American culture people tend to choose expedient and practical options over those that can have an impact on the big picture. I’m American and I have to fight this tendency in myself.
I believe that some things have value even if they aren’t purely practical or if they don’t have commercial potential. It’s my second soul, I’m quite sure, that helps me see things this way…
Thanks for your comment. So what did you major in at Winona?
Pamela
I agree with each of your statements. Your words are put very thoughtfully. I sometimes feel alone here in the midwest with my progressive thoughts as I am utterly surrounded by conservatives with whom I vehemently disagree. Anyway I hope you will keep giving us eye opening writings so we can all make these changes. I do believe one person can make a change but we have to spread the word. Guess what I used the new paper products and my “arse” was just fine with it!
I didn’t actually go to Winona – the link you posted is to the University of Minnesota campus newspaper. I majored in Nutrition, but I was quite lucky because the U of MN has a very large foreign language program and I was able to minor in Finnish as well. (They’re one of only three universities in the US offering it, so they definitely do value languages, even the less popular ones).
Hi Linda.
Glad to hear you survived the hardship! It must be tough to live in “the middle.” But good thing there are people like you there!
See you around!
Hi ksam.
Oops. Spaced on where the link came from. So you have two souls (at least) too! Good for you. The Finnish are very environmentally innovative. I just saw a thing on TV the other day about how they’re making ethanol from organic waste from bakeries! And a lot of it! I was impressed. Good second soul to have. ;-)
Hi,
Just stumbled across your blog – we moved here in September and are heading to paris next week – I love your blog! I have found most french to be not as eco-friendly as the philadelphians I know -I wonder if parisians are more with it than those from besancon. Anyway, I gathered you are a thrift store junkie (as am I) and I wondered if there was one or two shops (maybe close to touristy things?) in Paris you could reccomend that might have clothing and perhaps toys or knicknacks (I have 3 kids and this helps me bribe them into the store!) Any help would be great – thank you!
Hi Rebecca.
Bienvenue to France and frogblog ! Thank you for such a warm greeting.
I haven’t been to all the thrift shops in the list on this post :
http://pamela.poole.free.fr/frogblog/?p=323
but I don’t recall ever seeing any toys at all… I remember rolling my preschool son around in a beat up old grocery cart as he played with a broken toy slot machine that would keep him entertained for two hours… So I know exactly what you mean. Unfortunately, I don’t see a lot of kids in thrift stores either. So my suggestion is to send dad to the tourist thing with the kids and go nuts on your own!
Nice to meet you!
You’ve obviously never wiped with quilted ultra.