Four Reasons to Use a Bidet
And why I finally decided to stop using toilet paper.
Like many Americans, I first learned of bidets while visiting Europe. As a college student in the 1990s, I had no interest in trying the ones I saw in the youth hostel bathrooms of France and Italy. But in recent years I have reconsidered bidets. The following reasons cumulatively persuaded me of the value of using a bidet rather than toilet paper.
Reason 1: Shortages
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, when toilet paper was hard to find on the grocery store shelves, I considered, like some others, getting a bidet. But the idea seemed strange, and I was lucky to never run out of toilet paper, so I did not purchase a bidet.
Reason 2: Conservation
During the summer of 2021, I was dismayed by the number and scale of calamities throughout the world that were exacerbated by climate change. In response, I sought to do more in my personal life to simplify. I had already cultivated easy habits like shopping secondhand, eating a plant-based diet, and avoiding single-use plastic.
But what, I asked, would be a stretch for me? The answer was immediate: I could get a bidet. It takes many gallons of water to produce one roll of toilet paper. And there is also the environmental cost of shipping the toilet paper to me. Sometimes the only rolls I could find during the shortage were wrapped in plastic. I knew I should get a bidet. Yet I resisted the idea because it still felt too unfamiliar.
Reason 3: The cost of replacing my home’s sewer lines
When a co-worker told me that sludge from her home’s sewer line was backing up into her basement drains, I finally made the decision to get a bidet. My co-worker told me the estimated costs were either $3,000 to repair the line or over $10,000 for a replacement. My co-worker lives in a home built in the early 1960s as do I. Her situation could easily have been my own.
Reason 4: Public health
Searching the Internet for the words “aging sewers” I found many stories about cities around the world with old sewer systems now needing costly repairs or replacement. Older sewers are more likely to carry both sewage and stormwater in the same pipe. Intense storms, which have become more frequent because of climate change, overload these systems and trigger the discharge of combined sewage and stormwater into waterways, impacting public health.
Certainly, old sewers need to be repaired and replaced. But if enough people quit toilet paper, could we ease some of the stress on over-loaded, aging sewers? Reducing the amount of waste in the sewers could not make conditions any worse. I know I cannot change the entire culture of using toilet paper but I can decide to change my own bathroom habits.
Going Toilet Paper Free
I read reviews on bidets and decided to buy an attachment bidet costing $99, having both cold and warm water lines. The directions were straightforward and easy to follow and took less than an hour for me to install. I also purchased some cotton cloths for drying off. I could have cut and sewn these myself from old clothes, but I decided to support the business of an entrepreneurial seamstress on Etsy instead.
Once a week, I wash these cloths in the washing machine on the hot water setting and hang them on a rack to dry.
I am now toilet-paper-free which means:
- I am prepared if there is another shortage of toilet paper.
- I no longer use paper, a resource-intensive material.
- It is better for my budget. By not having to purchase toilet paper, I will eventually recoup the cost of the bidet. More importantly, I may be extending the life span of my home’s sewer line.
- I am not unnecessarily clogging my community’s aging sewers, overtaxed as they already are in this age of superstorms.
