How is toilet paper made?

It was not until the middle of the 20th century that the softness of toilet paper finally convinced the French to abandon their beloved newspaper when they went to the toilet.

But do you know how toilet paper is made? That's what you're going to find out in this article.

Toilet paper manufacturing: from tree to roll

To understand how toilet paper is made, you have to start by looking at the raw material: wood. From the tree to the delicate toilet paper, there are many steps that lead to the shaping of the roll that you know so well.

Step one: preparing the wood

First, the wood will be stripped of its bark to remove this dead, protective part of the tree, leaving only the soft wood.

The remaining wood is then cut into wood chips from which the necessary fibres (cellulose fibres) can be extracted in the manufacture of toilet paper.

From fiber recovery to paper pulp formation

The wood chips obtained are then processed to obtain a paste: cooking these chips will in particular allow the cellulose fibers to be released while keeping them intact. The material then changes consistency and a paste is obtained.

From sheet to rolls

This paste is then chemically treated to stabilize its appearance. It will then be dried and then pressed between heated rollers.

The toilet paper is almost ready! All that remains is to superimpose the number of rolls of paper according to the desired thickness of toilet paper, pre-cut the sheets and possibly emboss the paper. The making of the toilet paper rolls can then be finalized.

How is recycled toilet paper made?

However, you may have noticed that it is possible to buy recycled toilet paper. In practice, to know how recycled toilet paper is made, you have to look at the recycled paper side.

What paper is used to make recycled toilet paper?

Rather than using new wood, recycled paper is used as the base material to create toilet paper. However, this is not as simple as it seems since not all paper can be used to create toilet paper, which must be durable.

Thus, the paper from newspapers or leaflets that we receive far too frequently in our mailboxes will not constitute a good raw material for obtaining the recycled paper useful for the manufacture of recycled toilet paper. We will prefer a more resistant and thick paper like that found in office sheets for example.

What changes in the manufacturing process of recycled toilet paper?

Using recycled paper, the first steps to make the pulp that will serve as the basis for making toilet paper are different.

In fact, recycled paper is simply crushed with water to create a first pulp using pulpers.

This pulp will then have to be treated more intensively (washing, filtering and decanting) than for classic toilet paper in order to extract all original residue from the recycled paper (ink, glue, dye).

There you have it! Now you know everything you need to know about how toilet paper is made, whether it is recycled or not.