It is not easy being green in Hong Kong, especially when it comes to your toilet paper.
It might make sense that the toilet roll used to clean up your dirtiest deeds would come from the last dregs of a paper's life cycle, but in Hong Kong it is most likely you are flushing virgin pulp down the drain.
Virgin pulp is paper that has not been used before.
Despite global advocacy for less paper usage by Greenpeace and other environmental groups, eco-conscious consumers are at a loss for choice with major retailers in Hong Kong stocking toilet rolls made mostly from virgin pulp, with few, if any, choices for a recycled option.
'I don't want to flush 100 per cent virgin pulp, but it seems hard to find anything else in our supermarkets,' says Hamish Low, a member of Green Drinks Hong Kong, an informal gathering of people interested in green issues.
Of the 20 or so brands of toilet paper available in several major retail stores - including Wellcome, ParknShop and Jusco - only one or two were clearly marked as recycled products. The majority proudly bore the words '100 per cent virgin pulp'.