Welcome to Week #12 of the Sustainable Swap Challenge: the bidet
You may have found it challenging to get your monthly stock of toilet paper in recent weeks. As people stockpiled (despite urgent calls from government officials to stop doing so), toilet paper seemed to be an item in high demand. My family and I haven't seen toilet paper at the stores in weeks!
But even without the recent series of events, the fact is that many countries in the world — especially the U.S. – consume A LOT of toilet paper.
Statista reports that the average American uses 141 toilet paper rolls per year. In Germany, that average is 134, in the UK, the average is 127, in Japan, the average is 91, and in Australia, 88. (Full country by country data is here.)
And while toilet paper may be thought of as a non-negotiable, there is, in fact, an alternative: a bidet!
A bidet can dramatically reduce the amount of toilet paper used and for some people, can even eliminate the need for toilet paper altogether. (Though I have to admit that I am not in the latter group)
So what is a bidet?
Bidets are essentially a type of sink used to wash and clean yourself after… well, doing your business in the bathroom! Bidets can also be used for keeping clean during menstruation. They can come as a separate sprayer, a standalone fixture like a toilet, or as an add-on to an existing toilet.
Obviously the standalone fixture is pretty expensive (could be thousands of dollars) and requires a professional to set up. But, thankfully, bidet attachments are an affordable swap that can often be installed in just minutes. One of those attachments is the TUSHY Classic Bidet* which retails at $79 (*affiliate link of a concious life & style).
I personally am a cloth-diapering momma, so I already have a sprayer attachment on my toilet. Its cold water that comes out of the sprayer, so I’ve not used it for bidet purposes, but I could if I needed to. Also, remember those little plastic peri bottles you got from the hospital after giving birth…might not be a bad idea to either dig though out from below your bathroom sink or order some new ones online if this toilet paper crisis doesn’t seem to improve with time.
The TUSHY Bidet
Elizabeth, Founder of Conscious Life & Style, first learned about the TUSHY Bidet after listening to this episode of Green Dreamer Podcast and was convinced to make the switch — not just for environmental reasons but also for hygienic reasons.
So, she was super excited that the team at TUSHY sent me their Classic Bidet attachment to test out! She’s been using it for the past month and actually wrote an entire review on the bidet here with information about installation as well as her experience with it and things to be aware of.
Have you used a bidet? What was your experience like? If not, would you try out this swap? I'd love to know!
*Just giving credit to Elizabeth over at conscious life & style, the sustainable swap challenge is her concept, along with most of the wordage in this blog entry, I’m just adding my two cents and trying to further this challenge. consciouslifeandstyle.com