W.H. Auden Was a Poo-Ticket Cheapskate

You might call it TP, and in Japan it’s called “household paper,” but I’ve always liked the term “poo-tickets.”

If you’re an American, you probably have ultra-soft, quilted poo-tickets. But according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, quilted toilet paper is the worst choice you could make.

That’s because it can’t be made from recycled paper. Instead, the ultra-soft kind requires “virgin” wood, and so trees have to be cut down to make it.

Getting toilet paper that contains recycled material is an easy way to be a good citizen. (These are green poo-tickets!) Another method is to try using less paper than you do now. Poet W.H. Auden gave his houseguests one sheet of toilet paper per bathroom visit. (This seems a little cheap, even to me!)