Anybody ever use them? Pros & cons .
Anybody ever use them? Pros & cons .
Someone on WB turned me on to Wisi Wipes.Not exactly toilet paper but there is nothing to compare to a nice hot Wisi Wipe in the morning for your face and hands before breakfast coffee and you can save it for later hygienic use.Yup,I always pack the wipe and the tp out as there is too much paper in the woods already.
Yeah those tp tabs don't look like much, I would need a tube of them a day . I go with the biodegradable tp you know for septic tanks. Makes me feel better like I'm trying to do my part .
Neither do I, a lesson I learned years ago from LNT: pack it in, pack it out. I can't count the number of times I have come across a TP flower from someone who thought it was okay to bury it, only to have it unearthed by a ground critter.
Pack it in, pack it out.
Besides, I don't even bring TP anymore; if there is that much of a mess I slip on a glove and use water to clean up.
You dehydrate things by removing water. Since TP has essentially no water, it can't really be dehydrated. As a chemistry educator, I had to say it. Sorry, I occupational hazard.
Oh yeah a big 2-3 serving of chili Mac and beaf and a couple cups of coffee in the morning I'd need a box of these things!
I am going to assume most of you have never used a Wisi Wipe.It is Definitely not toilet paper.It is is more like a woven paper cloth.If it is indeed biodegradable I would think it would take much longer to decompose than toilet paper.I suspect gpburdelljr is correct that it is compressed while wet and then dehydrated to take it's thick coin sized shape.I prefer them to traditional wet wipes because they come small,lightweight,and dry and just a couple ounces of water (preferably hot water) will reconstitute it completely.
Many manufacturers exaggerate or lie (I know, I was shocked to learn that too), confusing the public with terms like biodegradable and flushable. Biodegradable over what period of time is really the question, which everything is biodegradable given enough time. Most man-made fabrics (with the possible exception of TP) do not completely breakdown and take years to actually reach something like a degraded condition, leaving plenty of time for animals to dig it up long after the biomass has gone into soil. Marbles are also flushable so that terminology won't tell you much and many if not most man-made fabrics are not all that dispersible. Because a lot of these man-made fabrics claim on the package they are flushable are not easily dispersible, they clog septic tanks and sewer systems and cost the American public millions of dollars annually to manage. So much for truth in advertising. While there are currently efforts to engage specific standards to define dispersible that could be used to determine which man-made fabrics will break down underground or in water, over what time span, under what conditions, the industry is pushing back against this effort so it will take a bit of time to reach agreement.
I do agree some of these products are great. However responsible hikers and backpackers, such as those here on White Blaze, pack out their TP and wipes to dispose of them properly.
- Traveling, hiking, camping, or picnics
- First-aid and emergency preparedness kits
- Minimize daily exposure to unknown ingredients
- Or add disinfectant for an instant antibacterial wipe
- Feminine hygiene or custom baby wipe
- Disposable yet reusable, can be rinsed many times
- Never dries out as you add the liquid
- Pure & simple for use children or pets
- Fits virtually anywhere for clean on the go
- Being food safe its ideal indoors and out
- Corn, crab, marshmallow roasts with large group
- BBQ's with friends or romantic lobster dinner for two
Wisi Wipe, no mention of being biodegradable
If you look on Amazon it says "Biodegradable".Technically the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Sphinx are also biodegradable as you can readily see what the elements have done to both.I would not expect a Wisi Wipe to bio degrade any time soon though which is why we should always pack them out.Ditto for tp and other wipes.
It appears that dehydrated toilet paper is the same as compressed toilet paper which is not toilet paper but rather viscose rayon. Viscose rayon is a semi-synthetic fiber made from wood pulp. Claims of how biodegradable it is seem to revolve around the fact that it is made from cellulose but it is hard to wade through them as there are pages and pages from both industry and some from environmental groups but nothing particularly scientifically determined. Probably some studies somewhere. They make clothes and drapes and other things from viscose rayon, so obviously a little stronger than tp.
I have a pair of composting tumblers, if I get a hold of some, I'll throw a few sheets in. There were some blue wiping towels used by the cleaning crew that were ending up in a different set of tumblers that I would have to pull out because they wouldn't compost in a timely fashion. I wasn't too sure they were even making much progress. I don't know what they were made of though. I could also throw some in my garden/yard bin that one just gets turned once in a while. Would have to wait until spring though, temps are dropping and decomposition will be slowing so I wouldn't want anything gumming up the system. The tumblers tend to fill up over the winter.
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The ones I’ve seen are a fairly open weave, and I don’t think I would want to use them as tp. I do use them as wash cloths while camping, and pack them out.
I use a cola can cut down to about 3/8 inch high that nests in my F Keg Caldera Cone.Prior to making coffee about 2 oz of water goes in the little tray on a Wisi Wipe.It blooms and makes a great hot wipe for the eyes,face,and hands.
Once used I save it for a little personal hygiene use like one would use a standard wet wipe.It makes a great final pass once one is done with regular tp cleanup.All my paper products go in a pet waste bag carried in the hygiene kit for proper disposal later.Once I tried the Wisi Wipes I have not given traditional wet wipes a second thot.
I interpret "flushable" to mean it is safe to flush into a municipal treatment system. Traditional wipes (baby wipes) are very tough and tend to get caught up in the processing/filtering equipment of sewage treatment plants, requiring the plant to shut down to perform maintenance on the equipment which costs a pile of money.
Don't really pay attention to Amazon. That info was from co's. web page
it's in the fine print on page 2
link http://wysiwipe.com/index.html
I think most of these compressed tablets are made of rayon. .