Last April, Wal-Mart set up the Live Better Index, which, among other things, tracks customers’ “adoption rate” of eco-friendly products. After one year, Wal-Mart reports a 66 percent increase in the overall adoption rate.
A decent chunk of this is in compact fluorescent light bulbs. But the organic milk adoption rate went up only negligibly, and the organic baby food rate actually went down. The lion’s share of the growth? “Extended life paper products.” As in the life of the individual roll of toilet paper, not the paper pulp from which it was made.
In other words, the toilet paper isn’t necessarily made from recycled paper, post-consumer or otherwise. However, there is alotof it on each roll. The Live Better Index website helpfully points out that “you will not have to change the roll as frequently as with regular rolls,” enabling you to “reduce storage needs” and “make less shopping trips.”
One cheer for innovative green products!
For a different take on Wal-Mart, see“Big Box Panic” in the new issue ofUtne Reader.
(Thanks, Grist.)
Image by Marco Ghitti,licensed under Creative Commons.
