In recent years, Chinese tissue paper made from bamboo has emerged as a trendy choice for eco-friendly shoppers. However, new research suggests these bamboo paper products may not offer significant climate benefits over tissue produced in the United States and, in some cases, may be more detrimental to the environment.
The findings are detailed in a new paper from North Carolina State University researchers, which compared the carbon footprint of bamboo tissue paper manufactured in China with that of conventional tissue paper manufactured in the U.S. and Canada. The researchers found that, while using bamboo biomass itself did not produce more greenhouse gases than traditional wood, the fossil fuel-heavy power grid in China led to significant increases in emissions compared with cleaner fuel sources used in North America.
"As far as emissions go, the technology used to create hygiene tissue paper is far more important than the type of fiber it's made from," said Naycari Forfora, lead author of the study and Ph.D candidate in the NC State College of Natural Resources. "Because the Chinese power grid is so reliant on coal for power, emissions throughout the entire tissue supply chain are higher than what we saw with the wood-based option."
Ronalds Gonzalez, an associate professor at NC State University and co-author of the paper, said that manufacturing tissue paper from bamboo is not meaningfully different from using other wood sources.
"Bamboo is a crop like any other, and it goes through the same production processes as Brazilian or Canadian wood," Gonzalez said. "Consumers often think of bamboo as a 'tree-free' option, but the trees used to make tissue are planted and harvested the same way that bamboo is. When you then factor in how coal-reliant the Chinese mills are, you start to see how emissions from this product are actually higher than others."
Researchers found that Chinese bamboo tissue was responsible for nearly 2,400 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per ton of tissue produced, compared to 1,824 kgCO2eq/ton for wood-based U.S. tissue. Chinese bamboo also underperformed in several environmental categories, including smog formation, respiratory effects and ecotoxicity. Of note, these differences largely disappeared when bamboo production occurred in areas with clean electrical grids, reinforcing the finding that technological improvements are significantly more impactful than a change in fiber type when developing decarbonization strategies.
The authors are members of the Sustainable & Alternative Fibers Initiative (SAFI) at NC State, the world's largest coalition dedicated to advancing knowledge on the sustainability of both conventional and alternative fibers. SAFI brings together more than 30 local and global partners from industry, academia, and government to collaboratively drive innovation and responsible fiber development.
The paper, "Comparative life cycle assessment of bamboo-containing and wood-based hygiene tissue: Implications of fiber sourcing and conversion technologies," is published in Cleaner Environmental Systems. Co-authors include Rhonald Ortega, Isabel Urdaneta, Ivana Azuaje, Keren A. Vivas, Hasan Jameel, and Richard Venditti of NC State.
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