NEXT time you reach for the toilet roll, consider this: 60 million rolls of toilet paper are flushed away in Europe every day. And the average American gets though 57 sheets a day, six times the global average.

In a report last week, the Worldwatch Institute in Washington DC highlighted the wastage of paper in rich and rapidly developing nations. In the US, 14.5 million tonnes of office paper and newspaper will be dumped this decade, despite being ideal for recycling as toilet paper.

Millions of tonnes of office paper and newspaper are dumped, despite being recyclable as toilet paper …