Go Green With Alternative Fibers, Recycled Paper Towels

Part two of this three part article focuses on the environmental advantages of long-roll towels and tissues.

In addition to saving on labor, long roll towel and tissue can help customers reduce their environmental footprints.

“One of the benefits for the category in general is less packaging waste,” says Keith Schneringer, marketing manager for WAXIE Sanitary Supply, San Diego. “If you have a case of six 2,000-foot tissue rolls, for example, you only have six cardboard cores, whereas with a case of 12 standard 350-foot rolls, you have 12 cores, plus you’d have to buy a second case to have the same amount of paper.”

Coreless rolls as well as jumbo rolls with smaller cores further reduce packaging waste. Additionally, Schneringer points out that long-roll tissue is not individually wrapped like standard rolls.

“It ends up being something that can be converted to an up-front savings but also a downstream savings where you don’t have to dispose of packaging,” he says.

Cases of long roll towel and tissue typically require less storage space, as well, says Huizenga.

“On an inventory level, the end user wouldn’t need to have as many cases of product, so the space needed to store products is less,” says Huizenga. “Most customers don’t think that way, but distributors can help them to see that as an advantage.”

As custodial departments and contract cleaners become more aware of their impact on the environment, manufacturers are responding with recycled paper and alternate fibers. Rapidly renewable resources, such as bamboo, corn and sugar cane, are becoming more popular and expanding customers’ choices in long-roll towel and tissue products.