NRDC's 2026 Toilet Paper Scorecard: What the Grades Mean for Your Bathroom

Toilet paper is one of the few products almost every household buys every week. That makes it one of the easiest places to make a better choice, if you know what to look for.

That's the idea behind The Issue with Tissue, the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) annual scorecard. NRDC has published it every year since 2019 to help shoppers compare brands side by side. The eighth edition came out on September 15, 2026, and it graded 149 toilet paper, paper towel and facial tissue products sold in the US.

Each product gets a score out of 600, and the biggest factor is what the paper is made from.

• Recycled paper scores highest. It keeps fiber in use and away from landfills.

• Bamboo comes next. It grows fast, needs far less land than trees and can ease pressure on forests when it's responsibly sourced. But plantations can cause harm if natural forests are cleared to plant them. Bamboo earns more points when it's FSC 100% certified, which rules out plantations created by clearing forests after 2020.

• Virgin forest fiber, meaning trees cut down to make paper, scores lowest. US tissue makers are major buyers of pulp from Canada's boreal forest.

Whitening matters too. Most paper is whitened with ECF (elemental chlorine free) processes, the US standard since 1998. Recycled paper generally uses chlorine-free methods. Products that skip whitening, or whiten without any chlorine, earn extra points.

New this year, NRDC also screened supply chains for human rights risks. Several store brands from major retailers were flagged as high risk, linked to the ongoing mercury crisis affecting the Grassy Narrows First Nation.

Under NRDC's formula, the best a bamboo product can do is 500 points, a B+. To get there, it has to be 100% bamboo, FSC 100% certified and unwhitened. Only recycled paper can score higher.

Betterway is one bamboo brand that hit that ceiling. Its Natural Brown toilet paper and paper towels each earned a B+, or 500 out of 600. Its white versions use the same FSC-certified bamboo with ECF whitening and earned a B, or 400. The 100-point gap comes entirely from whitening.

NRDC also compared prices across 63 toilet paper brands: 37 made from forest fiber, 14 from recycled content and 12 from bamboo.

Recycled toilet paper averaged $0.37 per 100 sheets, close to forest fiber at $0.33. Over a year, that difference adds up to about $5 per person. Bamboo averaged $0.58, or about $34 more per person each year than forest fiber.

For most households, a better grade doesn't require a much bigger budget. The single lowest-cost brand NRDC found was made from recycled content.

1. Check the fiber. Recycled content or FSC 100% certified bamboo both beat virgin forest fiber.

2. Look for the FSC label on bamboo products. Without it, you can't be sure how the bamboo was grown.

3. Choose unwhitened or chlorine-free when you can. Brown paper has simply skipped a step.

4. Look for the Green Seal logo. NRDC notes that Green Seal's July 2025 standard for sanitary products lines up with many of the scorecard's priorities, including recycled and FSC-certified fiber.

5. Read the full scorecard. NRDC lists every graded product, so you can see where your current brand lands.

You don't need a perfect bathroom. Switching one product you buy every week is a real change, and the scorecard makes it easy to pick one that's better than what you have now. If your current brand scored poorly, try a higher-graded option on your next shopping trip and see how your household likes it.

The full report, The Issue with Tissue, Eighth Edition, is free on NRDC's website.