Students are proposing to change the toilet paper purchasing at Guilford College based on the ethical purchasing policy drafts.
The current supplier of toilet paper to the college is Kimberly-Clark.
“They get all their virgin fiber from the Boreal forests in Canada, which is a ten thousand year old ecosystem,” said junior Noah Mace. Mace’s work with Greenpeace introduced him to concerns about Kimberly-Clark.
“Kimberly-Clark advocates not using recycled material based on softness,” said Mace. “Their facial tissue brand Kleenex uses 100% virgin fiber, with no recycled materials.”
Mace said that the industrial tissue Guilford purchases uses 40-60% recycled product, but he raised the concern that environmentally unfriendly corporations may challenge Quaker principles of Stewardship and Justice to our environment and ecosystems.
Max Carter, the Director of the Friends Center and Campus Ministry Coordinator, guided his Quaker Studies Capstone course last year to draft the ethical purchasing and procurement policy, a product of the strategic plan for the college.
With the policy still in draft stages, students are already evaluating the toilet paper purchasing options and gathering information about alternatives.
“The task becomes analyzing our providers,” said Carter.
Carter expressed the need to verify claims against the company, a process now underway by members of Assistant Professor of Geology Angela Moore’s Environmental Studies course.
Moore said she was looking forward to where the process leads.
“If there is a reasonably priced alternative available that meets our essential understandings of the ethics of purchasing, then I’m all for going for it. Noah says there are,” said Carter.
Defining a reasonably priced alternative requires some interpretation.
“To make a statement . sometimes you have to suck it up and pay the extra money,” said Carter.
Carter added that “the kind of paper products we’re talking about really do, in most senses of the word, have to do with the bottom line.”
Tracy Hall, the director of purchasing for the college, had no comment concerning Kimberly-Clark at this time. Mace feels that the administration has been extremely supportive so far and is optimistic about the rest of the process. The decision will weigh the costs and benefits of switching to a different tissue provider. Students are banding together to investigate the ethics and the options.
“I see just as much student activism on campus as I did 17 years ago,” said Carter.
Junior Malcolm Kenton works with Forevergreen, an environmental group on campus, to organize and do environmental work and issues.
“It’s always been a small but active minority,” said Kenton.
“It seems like a nice idea in concept but at the same time it sounds really expensive to hire people to do that … although I’m sure they could,” said senior Taylor Traversa. “At least for the toilet paper they could find people to find a reasonably priced alternative.