determined to help provide toilets for those who lack access. By giving 50% of our profits to WaterAid, we've already so
2014 IMPACT UPDATE
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HOLY CRAP. IT’S WORKING! A couple of years ago, we started Who Gives A Crap because we thought toilets were funny, and using the word crap in serious situations would be fun. We were right: we’ve had more fun doing this than we could ever have imagined.
Closer to home, we’ve also been amazed that toilet paper is still, largely, made with freshly-cut trees. We’re cutting down trees, wiping our bums and flushing them down the toilet, consuming loads of energy and water along the way. At Who Gives A Crap we only use 100% recycled paper in all of our toilet paper, meaning we’ve already saved thousands of trees and hundreds of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. After all, trees should be for hugging, not wiping!
Who Gives A Crap isn’t all pun and games, though. The real idea behind Who Gives A Crap has always been to use business, design and humor to make a difference in the world. In particular, we wanted to be part of the solution to the global sanitation crisis, and to improve our impact on the environment. And so, 18 months after we started selling toilet paper, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on our impact to date, and to share with you the progress we’ve made together.
It’s hard to believe we’ve accomplished so much in such a short period of time, but we also recognise that because the problems continue to grow in front of us, we need to grow our efforts too. We’ve got a number of exciting things planned for 2015, but in the meantime, thank you. Thank you for your support of this crazy idea, and for helping to be part of the solution. Here’s to an even better 2015!
Our team members have worked extensively in the developing world, and it has always shocked us that today, 2.5 billion people still lack access to an adequate toilet. Toilets provide dignity, health and an improved quality of life, and we’re determined to help provide toilets for those who lack access. By giving 50% of our profits to WaterAid, we’ve already sold enough toilet paper to give 46,500 people access to a toilet for an entire year, and we’re just getting started. Cover Photo: WaterAid/Tom Greenwood
Happy flushing,
The Co-founder with the really nice beard 2
WE MAKE TOILET PAPER, BUT WHAT REALLY EXCITES US IS THE IMPACT WE’RE
HAVING ON THE WORLD. HERE’S A QUICK LOOK AT OUR IMPACT TO DATE:
885
4,604 TREES 885 TONNES GREENHOUSE GASES EMISSIONS REDUCED BY
HAVE BEEN SAVED BY USING RECYCLED PAPER
WE’VE SOLD ENOUGH TOILET PAPER TO PROVIDE TOILETS TO OVER
46,500 PEOPLE
FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR BY MAKING OUR TOILET PAPER WITH RECYCLED PAPER WE HAVE SAVED
11.1 MILLION LITRES OF WATER & 3
885 BARRELS OF OIL
GOOD FOR PEOPLE
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GOOD FOR PEOPLE
BY THE END OF 2014, WE SOLD ENOUGH TOILET PAPER TO GIVE OVER 46,500 PEOPLE ACCESS TO A TOILET FOR A WHOLE YEAR. Who Gives A Crap was founded in response to one particularly stunning statistic - 2.5 billion people in the world today do not have access to adequate sanitation, that’s one in three of the world’s population.1 As a result, over 500,000 children die every year from diarrhoea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation.2 It kills more children every year than AIDS, measles and malaria combined,3 making diarrhoea the second biggest killer of children under five years old worldwide.4
Based on the donations we’ve made, we’re able to provide indicative metrics to explain the impact that comes from every purchase of our product. For example, we know that every roll we sell (on average) provides enough to fund access to a toilet for a week for a person in need. There are a lot of variables that contribute to this figure and it can vary between products and purchases, however we ensure that this claim is met as a very minimum; on most rolls, we give well above this claim.
Rather than focusing on the problem, though, we chose to be part of the solution. To do our part, we donate half of our profits to WaterAid, an organisation with deep experience and skill in implementing high impact sanitation projects throughout the developing world. We’ve made a decision to donate to WaterAid’s general funds for water and sanitation development projects which enables them to use their expertise to choose the best and highest impact projects. This means that our donations aren’t linked directly to specific projects, but rather fund ongoing sanitation projects in a given region. The case study on the following page is indicitive of the type of projects we’re funding through our partnership.
Looking at the overall scope of the impact we’ve had so far, we know that with the toilet paper we’ve sold we’ll be able to donate enough money to WaterAid to provide over 46,500 people access to a toilet for a whole year. We’re incredibly proud of this, but we also recognise we’re just at the beginning of our journey. The sanitation problem continues to be huge, which is what motivates us to grow and expand our impact. Over the next 12 months, we expect to be able to provide enough funding to provide over 100,000 people with a year’s access to a toilet—it’s an ambitious goal, but with your help we think we can accomplish it.
WaterAid, quoting WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) Report 2014 update WaterAid, quoting Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimate (IGME) 2014, led by UNICEF and WHO 3 Diarhhoea: Why children are still dying and what can be done. UNICEF, WHO 2009 4 WaterAid, quoting Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group (CHERG) 2012 1 2
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GOOD FOR PEOPLE
Photo: WaterAid/Tom Greenwood
CASE STUDY: PAPA PRIMARY SCHOOL Papa Primary School is a rural school with about 300 students located in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Until recently, the school had no water supply, unhygienic toilets and no hand washing facilities. Every time it rained, the toilets flooded making them unusable, forcing students to use nearby bushes. With nowhere safe and clean to go to the toilet, children were exposed to disease and lacked privacy. The lack of clean and private toilets had also been proven to be a key barrier to school attendance for girls. Without appropriate facilities, the students were missing out on their chance to gain an education.
The community celebrated the new facilities with an opening ceremony. The ceremony represents an important turning point in the life of the school and the community. The celebration also encourages the students to keep the new facilities clean and hygienic. A school water, sanitation and hygiene committee has been established at Papa Primary School. The committee members are tasked with ensuring facility maintenance and promotion of good practices among the students and teachers. The committee is essential for the sustainability of both the facilities and the behaviour change, such as hand washing.
Last year, WaterAid installed improved toilets for the school, with separate units for boys and girls, handwashing stations and female hygiene units so that girls can continue going to school when they are menstruating. The pupils and teachers at Papa Primary School have safe and private toilet facilities for the first time.
The teachers and students at Papa Primary School are very pleased with their new facilities. Teachers told WaterAid “the school was closed twice because our toilets were very unhygienic. The new facilities have taken care of that problem.”
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GOOD FOR THE PLANET
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GOOD FOR THE PLANET
BY USING RECYCLED PAPER, WE’VE SAVED OVER 4,604 TREES AND REDUCED GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS BY 885 TONNES. We’ve also saved over 11.1 million litres of water, over 885 barrels of oil, 1.5 million kilowatt hours of electricity, 9.5 tonnes of air pollutants and diverted 1,417 cubic metres of landfill. And that’s just in our first 18 months or so.
So where does our paper come from instead? Every batch is a little different (it is recycled, after all), but it’s primarily made from the recycled fibres of paper sourced from schools near where we produce. At our request, our manufacturer has been audited and certified under the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC) recycled product standards, so you can be assured that our product is produced in accordance with one of the leading global standards in responsible forestry management and recycled material sourcing.
It still boggles our minds that anyone would make toilet paper from a freshly-cut tree, but about 93% of rolls sold in Australia are made from virgin fibres. Millions of trees are cut down every year just for people to wipe their bums, but we’re determined to prove that environmentally friendly options can be just as good—if not better—than trees. Much of the fibre used in non-recycled toilet paper is grown from monoculture plantations. These plantations are a slight improvement over old-fashioned logging operations, but they can still be harmful to the environment because they reduce biological diversity, are often chemical-intensive and demand large quantities of water to support fast-growing tree species.10
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Saving trees is only one part of improving the environment. We also keep inks, dyes and other nasties out of the paper, to ensure that what you flush is safe for septic and the planet, and we continue to look for new ways to improve our environmental butt-print.
Inés Acosta, ‘Green desert’ monoculture forests spreading in Africa and South America, The Guardian, 2011
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FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS, THANK YOU. WE COULDN’T HAVE DONE ANY OF THIS WITHOUT YOUR SUPPORT. NOW, TIME TO MAKE MORE TOILET PAPER!
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