Is Toilet Paper Made From Trees? Most of It Still Is

Here's something most of us never think about: the majority of toilet roll sold in the UK is still made from fresh wood pulp, from trees cut down to make it. Which? puts it plainly: "The majority of the toilet roll we buy in the UK is made out of virgin wood" (Which?, 2026). If you've already switched to recycled or bamboo, you're part of a small but growing group moving away from that. If you haven't, this is a good place to start.

We sell bamboo toilet paper, so you'd expect us to care about this. But we'd say the same if we sold recycled. The two biggest alternatives to fresh tree pulp have more in common than they have differences.

How much toilet paper is made from fresh trees?

There's no official UK figure, which surprised us. The closest we found is European. Across Europe's tissue industry, recovered paper makes up only around 29% of the raw material going into household and sanitary paper (Cepi Key Statistics 2023, the European paper industry body). Most of the rest is fresh wood pulp.

So the everyday roll in most bathrooms still begins life as a tree.

Where does that pulp come from?

Mostly from two places. Fast-growing eucalyptus plantations, especially in Brazil, and softwood forests in the north, especially Canada and Scandinavia (NRDC, The Issue with Tissue, 2026).

Campaign groups have raised real concerns. The US environmental group NRDC has long highlighted logging in Canada's boreal forest, one of the world's largest intact forests, to supply pulp for short-lived products like tissue (NRDC, 2026). WWF UK says simply: "Cutting down trees to produce toilet paper or kitchen roll makes little sense" (WWF UK).

The other side, fairly

It would be wrong to say every fresh-pulp roll comes from a ravaged forest. A lot of it comes from managed plantations and certified forests. Brazil's tree industry body reports over 10 million hectares of certified plantation land, alongside large areas kept for conservation (Ibá Annual Report 2024). European tissue makers point to certified, traceable northern forests.

That matters, and certification is a real step forward. But as Which? puts it: "Even when it carries certification, virgin wood pulp is a limited and precious resource" (Which?, 2026). Growing and felling trees for something used once and flushed away is still a strange use for them.

The two ways out: recycled and bamboo

The good news is there are two well-established alternatives, and both are better than fresh tree pulp, according to the people who rank these things.

Ethical Consumer calls virgin tree paper "the least sustainable" option. It rates recycled as the most sustainable, and says FSC-certified bamboo is "generally better than toilet paper made from virgin tree pulp" (Ethical Consumer). Which? says the evidence points to FSC-certified bamboo being "a better option in terms of environmental impact than virgin wood" (Which?, 2026).

We'll be honest: both of those organisations put recycled first and bamboo second. We see it a little differently, for reasons we've explained in Bamboo or Recycled Toilet Paper? Why We Chose Bamboo. But we all agree on the bigger point: moving away from fresh tree pulp is the step that matters most.

Bamboo isn't automatically good, either. WWF warns that native forests are sometimes cleared to plant bamboo (WWF UK), which is exactly why FSC certification matters. Ours is FSC certified (licence FSC-C007915), and you can check that on FSC's public database.

How to tell what's in your roll

The packet doesn't always make it obvious, so here are a few things worth checking.

If the roll is made from wood and carries an "FSC Mix" or "FSC 100%" label, it's made from fresh tree pulp, from certified sources (Ethical Consumer; FSC UK). On a bamboo roll like ours, the same FSC label covers the bamboo instead.

If it says "recycled", look for a percentage, and ideally the FSC Recycled label, which is independently checked. Which? notes that recycled content "can sometimes be a very small amount" (Which?).

If it says "bamboo", ask whether the brand has an independent fibre test. When Which? tested rolls sold as pure bamboo in 2024, three of five turned out to be mostly eucalyptus (Which?, 2024). Ours shows premium bamboo (95%) with 5% sugar cane fibre, both fast-growing grasses, and the report is on our accreditations page.

Same side

If you buy recycled toilet paper, we think you're making a good choice, and we'd rather you did that than buy fresh tree pulp. If you buy bamboo, we'd love it to be ours, but more than anything we'd like it to be the real thing.

Either way, you're helping move toilet paper away from trees. We'd love to hear what made you switch, or what's stopping you. Drop us a line.

A few quick answers

Is toilet paper made from trees?

Most of it is. Which? says the majority of toilet roll sold in the UK is made from virgin wood. Recycled and bamboo are the main alternatives.

What is virgin pulp toilet paper?

Toilet paper made from fresh wood pulp, from trees harvested for the purpose, rather than from recycled paper or other plants like bamboo.

Is bamboo toilet paper tree-free?

Bamboo is a grass, not a tree, so genuine bamboo toilet paper is tree-free. It's worth checking the brand has a fibre test, as some rolls sold as bamboo have turned out to be mostly wood.

Does FSC mean my toilet paper isn't from trees?

No. On a wood-based roll, FSC Mix or FSC 100% means fresh tree pulp from certified sources. FSC tells you the source is responsibly managed, not that no trees were used.