As you might remember, Betsy shared options for "Going, sustainably" in a blog post last February. That was before the infamous TP shortage of 2020, our crazy response to the coronavirus pandemic that happened about a month later. That shortage gave both Betsy and myself the boost we needed to install bidets at home. This blog serves as her follow up. For my part, I'm pretty happy with my bidet. As for cloth wipes, it's not a step I've personally taken, but as an avid cloth diaperer, it doesn't weird me out. If it's too much for you, maybe you can splurge on a bidet that has a warm air drying feature? Anything goes in 2020. - Jana
By Betsy Dudash, SW board president
Back in February I wrote a surprisingly-controversial blog about “’Going,’ Sustainably.” One of the toilet paper replacements I talked about was bidets. I had wanted one for a while, so when the stores ran out of t.p. in mid-March I went ahead and got one. I didn’t really have a choice, to be honest. All we had left was a certain brand of recycled t.p. that I had designated for emergency use only.
I looked at the various options and decided that our bidet needed to include a self-cleaning, adjustable spray nozzle and a hot-water line because. . . winter. Our almost-100-year-old bathroom is small, so the bidet controls needed to fit in the tight space between the toilet and the wall.
We settled on the very affordable Brondell Pure Spa Dual-Temperature Bidet, which is a bidet attachment that fits under our existing toilet seat. It came with all the hardware needed, and we were able to get it attached and working quickly. (I say “we” though I’m not mechanically inclined, but installation was so easy that I could have done it on my own if I had to.)
I had purchased some organic cotton-hemp fleece, and I made bidet cloths by cutting 4” x 8” pieces, zigzag-sewing the edges with the soft, fuzzy side on the outside. After a couple of uses, each cloth goes into the laundry. I wash them on warm and then put them in the dryer, and they get softer with each washing. You can also purchase Toilet UnPaper Rolls or cloth wipes from Marley's Monsters, a Eugene, Oregon-based zero waste shop.
TMI? Maybe. But if the toilet-paper hoarders strike again, maybe you’ll take the plunge and get a bidet, too.
As mentioned in Betsy's first blog on this topic, we've linked some products here but we don't receive any compensation for their endorsement. If you do want to support Sustainable Wenatchee through your shopping for eco-friendly products, add us on smile.amazon.com or link us to your Fred Meyer Rewards card.