For most of us, toilet paper is not even a blip on the radar screen. It’s the ultimate “invisible” essential, until, of course, it runs out. So, learning that the rolls in your bathroom might have ties to some not-so-great chemicals, well, that’s a bit of a curveball.
But there’s a scientific reason why researchers are looking into this. It seems that some toilet paper out there has PFAS, or what’s sometimes called “forever chemicals,” which means they just don’t go away. That’s not to say that the rolls in your bathroom right now are a
risk or anything, but rather that an unremarkable aspect of our lives has become part of a bigger, more complex story.
The point of all of this, however, isn’t to try and freak everyone out, but rather to consider the facts, determine what, if anything, we should be worried about, and what we should do about it.
How toilet paper joined the PFAS conversation
This is not the result of a social movement; it is the result of a lab. Scientists studied wastewater samples and realized something unusual. Certain types of PFAS were showing up in the sewage. As they back-tracked to determine the origin, toilet paper came into the picture.