Face of Nation International : Meg Ulman and Patrick Jones, from Daylesford, now use a squat composting toilet and ‘family cloths’ — reusable wipes made from flannel. They made the change when they realised the popular toilet paper delivery service they used manufactured their rolls in China.
The flannel is from a local op shop and has been going strong for five years. After each wipe, the cloth is put into a bucket beside the toilet — with optional eucalyptus oil — and every five days to a week, the family cloth takes a spin in a front loader washing machine at maximum heat.
After being washed, the family cloth is dried on an outdoors clothes horse. It is just one in a series of changes the couple has made over the course of a decade, including giving up shopping at supermarkets, giving up their car, and turning off the gas at home in favour of a wood heater.
“It’s to save money; it’s to save resources,” Ms Ulman said. Toilet paper panic buying has caused a range of problems around Australia, including environmental ones. Plumbing problems occur when newspaper, baby wipes, kitchen paper, tissues and even tea towels are flushed as alternatives to toilet paper.
Australians have been warned they could end up with faeces on the bathroom floor if sewers continued to block up. In eastern Victoria’s Gippsland region, the number of sewer blockages has tripled since February. “When it’s blocked there’s nowhere for what’s coming into the system to go, so it can go back up into houses so none of those scenarios are good ones,” Gippsland Water managing director Sarah Cumming said. (Source: ABC News – Australia)
