Kimberly-Clark, the makers of Kleenex® brand tissues, is destroying some of the last remaining ancient forest in North America to make a use-once, throw away product. This is ANCIENT forest we're talking about, quite different from the average collection of trees most of us think of when we think forest. If you've never walked an ancient forest, it's really impossible to convey just HOW different: they're thick with life, dense and dark with it, the produce of thousands of years of evolution eking out every exploitable nook and cranny and setting up an intricate balance that doesn't simply grow back when you cut it down.

Unrepentant hippy that I am, I blow my nose in reusable organic cotton. If that's a lifestyle change which you fear will lead eventually to muesli munching and solar-panel-powered iPod playlists featuring the Grateful Dead, there are forest-friendly tissue products out there as well. One of these ought to be the choice of anyone who doesn't want the convenience of wiping their nose to be party to Kimberly-Clark's wiping out the homes of bear, caribou, salmon, and the gazillions of less than cute and cuddly species that make ancient forests the rare cathedrals of nature that they are.

Forget Using Kimberly-Clark until they clean up their act. There's plenty of sources of pulp for paper products that don't destroy irreplaceable ecosystems.

--b

P.S. Here's a couple early entries I like:

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Brian Fitzgerald is the Chief Web Editor over at www.greenpeace.org.