The 6 Best Plastic-Free Toilet Paper Brands (2026): Lab-Tested for PFAS

Toilet paper is the one paper product in the house that nobody researches. You buy the pack that is on offer, it comes home in a plastic bag, and the bag goes in the bin within about four seconds. That is roughly the whole decision, for most households, for a lifetime.

Two things have changed that are worth five minutes of attention. The first is that the plastic bag is no longer necessary — a real plastic-free pack now costs roughly what a supermarket multipack costs, which was not true three years ago. The second is less comfortable: researchers have now measured PFAS in toilet paper itself, not just in the packaging, and when a consumer group paid an EPA-certified laboratory to screen 23 retail products, the brands that failed were not the ones you would guess. We will name all of them, and we will be precise about what the testing can and cannot tell you.

Why does plastic-free toilet paper need a PFAS test?

Because PFAS is measurably in toilet paper already, at parts-per-billion levels, and the reason is mundane rather than sinister: PFAS compounds are used as wetting agents in the pulping process, and recycled paper fiber can carry them in from whatever the paper was in a previous life. Nobody is adding “forever chemicals” to toilet paper on purpose. We covered the science in full in does toilet paper have PFAS; here is the short version, because it is what the ranking below is built on.

The study that established this is Thompson, Chen, Bowden and Townsend, “Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Toilet Paper and the Impact on Wastewater Systems,” published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters in 2023, doi 10.1021/acs.estlett.3c00094, with the published record at the American Chemical Society. The team at the University of Florida collected packaged toilet paper from four world regions — Africa, North America, South and Central America, and Western Europe — assayed each sample for 34 separate PFAS, and analyzed sewage sludge from eight Florida wastewater treatment plants for the same list.

Now the part most coverage of this study skipped, and the reason we are not going to tell you to panic. This is a study about what reaches the sewer, not about a dose you absorb. The authors’ conclusion is that toilet paper should be treated as a potentially major source of PFAS entering wastewater treatment systems, because treated sewage sludge is spread on farmland. It is an environmental-loading paper. Nobody has demonstrated that the PFAS in a sheet of toilet paper does anything to the person holding it.

What makes 6:2 diPAP worth tracking anyway is that it is a precursor. It does not stay as itself: work on biotransformation in animals and in biosolid-amended soil has shown diPAPs converting into stable perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids, including PFHxA and PFOA — see, for example, the rat uptake and biotransformation work indexed at PubMed 24460105 and the biosolids-applied soil study at PubMed 24308318. The EPA’s own plain-language summary of what PFAS are and why they persist sits at EPA: our current understanding of the risks of PFAS. So the compound that dominates toilet paper is the kind that turns into the compounds everybody is worried about, downstream, slowly.

Which plastic-free brands tested clean, and which did not?

The peer-reviewed study above did not name brands — it sampled anonymously by region. The brand-level data comes from a separate effort: the consumer group Mamavation bought retail toilet paper between October 2021 and September 2026 and sent 23 products to an EPA-certified laboratory to be screened for organic fluorine, using the method “Determination of Total Fluorine by Oxygen Flask Combustion and Ion-Selective Electrode.” Six came back with a detection. You can read the full report and methodology.

Four of the six are products bought specifically to be the responsible choice. That is the finding worth carrying out of this page. Who Gives a Crap and Tushy are not supermarket afterthoughts — they are the brands recommended in most “eco toilet paper” roundups on the internet, including ones that cite this exact test and then recommend them anyway.

And the caveat, stated as plainly as the finding, because you deserve both. Organic fluorine is a screening marker, not proof of a specific PFAS. The testers say so themselves: fluorinated pesticide residue and fluorinated pharmaceuticals can also register on this method. A detection means fluorine-carrying organic compounds are present and PFAS is the most likely explanation; it does not identify which one or at what level. Equally, non-detect does not mean zero — it means below what this method could see in that lot, on that day. This is one commissioned round of consumer testing, not a peer-reviewed survey, and a mill can change its process without changing its packaging. We rank on it because it is the only brand-level evidence that exists, and we would rather use imperfect real data than none.

Compare all 6 picks

Every pick side by side — tap a name to jump to the full review, or check today’s price.

Pick	PFAS marker	Plastic film & sheets
Best OverallBetterway 3-Ply Bamboo	Non-detect	None in the pack360 × 12 rolls	Check price →
Best Zero-Plastic PackagingReel Premium Bamboo	Non-detect	None in the pack300 × 24 rolls	Check price →
Best ValueAmazon Aware Bamboo	Non-detect	None in the pack350 × 24 rolls	Check price →
Most Sheets per RollGrove Co. Ultra Soft	Non-detect	None in the pack400 × 24 rolls	Check price →
Best UnbleachedCaboo Unbleached	Non-detect	None in the pack300 × 12 double rolls	Check price →
Best for Septic and RVSave Trees Bamboo	Non-detect	None in the pack300 × 24 rolls	Check price →

What does “plastic-free” toilet paper actually mean?

Three separate layers, and most packs on sale only fix one of them. Getting this straight is what stops you paying a premium for a pack that still arrives in a bag.

Layer one is the outer wrap. A standard supermarket multipack is sealed in polyethylene film — a single-use plastic bag with a lifespan of about four seconds. This is the big one by weight, and it is the layer every pick in this guide replaces with a cardboard carton.

Layer two is the individual roll sleeve. Plenty of “eco” packs put paper on the outside and then wrap each roll in plastic inside. Every pick here uses a paper sleeve instead, and three of them — Reel, Grove Co. and Caboo — skip printed color on the roll entirely. You can see the plain brown sleeves in the Reel photograph above.

Layer three is the sheet itself, and here the word “plastic” stops being the right word. Toilet paper is not made of plastic in any brand. What the sheet can carry is process chemistry: PFAS from pulping or recycled feedstock, chlorine compounds from bleaching, plus dyes, inks and fragrance. That is why this guide ranks on a laboratory result rather than on the words on the front of the box, and the same reasoning we applied to paper food packaging in our pieces on whether paper plates have PFAS and whether parchment paper has PFAS.

One more label that gets over-read: “tree-free” and FSC certification are forestry claims, not chemistry claims. They tell you where the fiber came from and how it was grown. They say nothing whatsoever about what happened in the mill — which is exactly how three FSC-friendly bamboo products ended up in the detection table above.

The 6 Best Plastic-Free Toilet Paper Brands in 2026

#1 — Betterway Bamboo Toilet Paper, 3-Ply (12 rolls, 360 sheets) — Best Overall

Best Overall

Betterway Bamboo Toilet Paper, 3-Ply (12 rolls, 360 sheets)

The only pick that pairs a non-detect lab result with the most paper per roll of any 3-ply bamboo pack here — and no plastic film at any layer of the package.

Non-detect for organic fluorine No plastic film in the pack 3-ply, 360 sheets/roll FSC certified (brand claim) Paper roll sleeves

Verdict: If you want one decision made and finished, this is it. The lab result is the part no competitor can copy with marketing, and the roll is long enough that you are not replacing it every other day.

A 12-roll carton of 100% bamboo three-ply at 360 sheets per roll, which is 4,320 sheets in the box. The pack contains no plastic at any level: there is no outer polyethylene bag, and each roll is sleeved in Betterway’s own printed paper rather than film. The brand’s listing describes the tissue as organic, FSC certified, septic safe and free of plastic and PFAS. More usefully than any of those claims, Betterway’s bamboo tissue is one of the products that went to the EPA-certified laboratory in the Mamavation round and came back non-detect for organic fluorine — the screening marker the whole category is arguing about. A 36-roll unbleached version of the same tissue is sold separately if you prefer the undyed look and a bulk count.

No plastic bag, no plastic sleeve, 360 sheets on every roll, and an independent lab result rather than a sentence on the box.

Why it’s best for plastic exposure: every layer of the packaging is paper or board, so nothing in the pack is a polyethylene film you unwrap and throw away.

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• Free delivery & returns for Prime members
• No plastic film anywhere in the pack
• Non-detect for organic fluorine at an EPA-certified lab

The honest trade-offs. Twelve rolls is a small box, so the cost per sheet is higher than the 24- and 36-roll packs further down this list — if price per wipe is your metric, buy the bulk version. The paper sleeves are printed with colored ink, which is a cosmetic choice rather than a plain one; Reel and Caboo skip the color entirely. And “PFAS free” printed on a listing is a manufacturer’s claim, not a test — it is the independent non-detect result, not the label, that earns this the top spot.

Best for: Anyone who wants the whole question settled in one purchase and is willing to pay a little more per sheet for a longer roll and a tested product.

#2 — Reel Premium 3-Ply Bamboo Toilet Paper (24 rolls, 300 sheets) — Best Zero-Plastic Packaging

Best Zero-Plastic Packaging

Reel Premium 3-Ply Bamboo Toilet Paper (24 rolls, 300 sheets)

A kraft box, brown paper sleeves, no bleach and no dye — the most literal reading of “plastic-free” on this list, and it also tested clean.

Non-detect for organic fluorine Zero plastic packaging 3-ply, 300 sheets/roll Unbleached, chemical & bleach free Septic safe

Verdict: The pick for the household that wants the package itself to be the proof. Nothing in this box needs explaining: cardboard outside, brown paper around each roll, nothing to peel off and bin.

Twenty-four mega rolls of 100% bamboo three-ply at 300 sheets per roll, 7,200 sheets in total, shipped in a plain kraft carton. Each roll is wrapped in unprinted brown paper — visible in the product photograph — and the listing states “Zero Plastic Packaging” outright, alongside unbleached, tree-free, chemical and bleach free, and septic safe. Reel’s bamboo tissue also came back non-detect for organic fluorine in the EPA-certified laboratory round. Because the sheet is unbleached, it is the pale tan color you can see in the picture rather than white, which is a straightforward consequence of skipping the bleaching step rather than a defect.

The simplest package on this page: a cardboard box and 24 rolls in plain brown paper, with nothing plastic to remove.

Why it’s best for plastic exposure: the outer carton is board and the individual sleeves are uncoated paper, so the pack contributes no film at all to the bin.

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• Free delivery & returns for Prime members
• Unbleached and undyed
• Non-detect for organic fluorine at an EPA-certified lab

The honest trade-offs. Unbleached means visibly tan, and some households simply do not like how that looks in a white bathroom — worth knowing before 24 rolls arrive. At 300 sheets a roll it carries 60 fewer sheets than the Betterway roll and 100 fewer than the Grove Co. roll, so a 24-pack does not last as long as the count suggests. And like every bamboo brand here, the fiber is grown and milled in Asia, so the low-paper-footprint argument comes with a shipping footprint attached.

Best for: The reader whose objection is the plastic wrapper itself, and who would rather have a box they can flatten and recycle whole.

#3 — Amazon Aware Bamboo 3-Ply Toilet Paper (24 rolls, 350 sheets) — Best Value

Best Value

Amazon Aware Bamboo 3-Ply Toilet Paper (24 rolls, 350 sheets)

8,400 sheets, FSC certified, plastic-free packaging, a non-detect lab result — and consistently the cheapest way onto this list.

Non-detect for organic fluorine Plastic-free packaging 3-ply, 350 sheets/roll FSC certified 8,400 sheets total

Verdict: The budget answer, and not a compromised one. On the two things that are actually checkable — the lab result and the absence of plastic film — it matches picks that cost noticeably more.

Twenty-four rolls of FSC-certified 100% bamboo three-ply at 350 sheets per roll, 8,400 sheets in total, with unscented tissue and paper roll sleeves. The listing names the packaging as plastic-free and the forestry certification as FSC. Amazon Aware 100% Bamboo is among the products recorded as non-detect for organic fluorine in the EPA-certified laboratory round, which is the reason it is ranked here rather than mentioned as a cheap alternative. For a 12-roll version of the same tissue, the smaller pack is sold under its own listing.

The lowest-friction switch here: a familiar checkout, 8,400 sheets, no plastic in the pack, and the same lab verdict as the premium brands.

Why it’s good for plastic exposure: paper sleeves and a board carton, with no polyethylene overwrap on the multipack.

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• Free delivery & returns for Prime members
• FSC certified, unscented
• Non-detect for organic fluorine at an EPA-certified lab

The honest trade-offs. This is a retailer’s own private label, which means the mill behind it is not named and can change without the product name changing — a real limitation when the thing you care about is mill chemistry. FSC certification covers how the bamboo was grown and harvested, not what happened to it in processing, so it is not a chemical claim. And the tissue is bleached white rather than left natural, which is a cosmetic preference but also an extra processing step.

Best for: Households replacing a 24-pack habit who want the switch to cost roughly what they already spend.

#4 — Grove Co. Ultra Soft Bamboo Toilet Paper (24 mega rolls, 400 sheets) — Most Sheets per Roll

Most Sheets per Roll

Grove Co. Ultra Soft Bamboo Toilet Paper (24 mega rolls, 400 sheets)

400 sheets on every roll — 9,600 in the box, equivalent to 96 regular rolls — from a pack that states no dyes, no inks and no plastic.

Non-detect for organic fluorine Made without plastic 3-ply, 400 sheets/roll No dyes or inks 24 mega = 96 regular rolls

Verdict: Buy this one if the thing that annoys you is changing the roll. Nothing else here puts 400 three-ply sheets on a single core, and the pack is the plainest of the lot — no printing on the tissue at all.

Twenty-four mega rolls of 100% bamboo three-ply at 400 sheets per roll, which the carton states is equivalent to 96 regular rolls and 9,600 sheets. The box carries the line “go beyond plastic” and states the product is made without dyes, inks, plastic or pesticides, with the rolls supplied plain and unprinted. Grove Co.’s tree-free toilet paper is recorded as non-detect for organic fluorine in the EPA-certified laboratory round. For a household that wants the longest possible interval between roll changes while staying inside the tested set, this is the one.

The longest roll on this page by a clear margin, in a pack that states it uses no dyes, no inks and no plastic.

Why it’s good for plastic exposure: no plastic in the packaging and no printing on the tissue, so there is nothing added to the sheet after the mill.

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• Free delivery & returns for Prime members
• No dyes or inks on the tissue
• Non-detect for organic fluorine at an EPA-certified lab

The honest trade-offs. A 400-sheet mega roll is physically fat, and it will not fit every recessed or spring-loaded holder — measure before you commit to 24 of them. “Equivalent to 96 regular rolls” is a sheet-count conversion rather than a count of rolls you receive, which is standard practice in this category and still worth reading carefully when you compare prices. And “ultra soft” is a manufacturer’s description, not a measured property.

Best for: Big households, and anyone who would rather restock twice a year than once a month.

#5 — Caboo Tree-Free Bamboo Toilet Paper, Unbleached (12 double rolls) — Best Unbleached

Best Unbleached

Caboo Tree-Free Bamboo Toilet Paper, Unbleached (12 double rolls)

Unbleached, undyed, fragrance-free two-ply from one of the longest-established tree-free brands — and it tested clean.

Non-detect for organic fluorine Plastic free 2-ply, 300 sheets/double roll Unbleached Septic safe

Verdict: The pick for a sensitive household: nothing is bleached, nothing is dyed, nothing is perfumed, and the lab found nothing. The two-ply sheet is the trade you accept for that.

Twelve double rolls of unbleached 100% bamboo bath tissue at 300 sheets per roll, two-ply, which the carton states is equivalent to 15 standard double rolls. The pack is labeled unbleached, septic safe, paraben free, chemical free, BPA free and plastic free, and the roll in the photograph is the natural tan color of untreated bamboo pulp rather than bleached white. Caboo’s tree-free bamboo bath tissue is recorded as non-detect for organic fluorine in the EPA-certified laboratory round. Caboo also sells a bamboo-and-sugarcane blend under a separate listing; this one is the straight unbleached bamboo.

No bleach, no dye, no fragrance, and an independent lab result — the shortest list of things done to the paper of any pick here.

Why it’s good for plastic exposure: plastic-free packaging, and an unbleached sheet means one fewer processing stage between the plant and the roll.

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• Free delivery & returns for Prime members
• Unbleached, fragrance-free
• Non-detect for organic fluorine at an EPA-certified lab

The honest trade-offs. This is the only two-ply pick on the list, and a two-ply sheet is thinner than a three-ply one — in practice people reach for more sheets, which quietly eats the savings of the longer roll. Twelve rolls is also the smallest pack here. And “double roll” counting makes direct price comparison harder than it should be: compare total sheets, which is 3,600 in this box, rather than the number on the front.

Best for: Anyone with sensitive skin, and anyone who would rather have the plainest possible product than the softest one.

#6 — Save Trees Bamboo Toilet Paper, 3-Ply (24 jumbo rolls, 300 sheets) — Best for Septic and RV

Best for Septic and RV

Save Trees Bamboo Toilet Paper, 3-Ply (24 jumbo rolls, 300 sheets)

Sold specifically for septic systems, boats and RVs — the one case where how fast a sheet breaks apart is the whole point.

Non-detect for organic fluorine Plastic & chemical free 3-ply, 300 sheets/roll FSC certified For home, boat & RV

Verdict: If you are on a septic tank or a holding tank, buy for break-up speed first and everything else second. This is the pack on this list that is explicitly sold for that job and still clears the lab screen.

Twenty-four jumbo rolls of 100% bamboo three-ply at 300 sheets per roll, 7,200 sheets in total, with each roll wrapped in printed paper and the listing stating FSC certified, PFAS free, plastic and chemical free, and suitable for home, boat and RV use. Save Trees bamboo toilet paper is recorded as non-detect for organic fluorine in the EPA-certified laboratory round. The brand was previously sold under the Cloud Paper name, which is worth knowing because searching the old name now returns a mixture of listings.

A three-ply bamboo roll sold for septic and holding tanks, with plastic-free packaging and a clean lab screen.

Why it’s good for plastic exposure: paper roll wraps and a board tray, with no polyethylene bag around the multipack.

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• Free delivery & returns for Prime members
• FSC certified, sold as septic safe
• Non-detect for organic fluorine at an EPA-certified lab

The honest trade-offs. “Septic safe” is a manufacturer’s claim on this product as on every other one in the category — there is no government mark behind it, and the only real test is how your own system behaves. The brand name change from Cloud Paper means older reviews and older guides point at listings that may no longer be the same pack. And at 300 sheets a roll, “jumbo” describes the roll’s diameter rather than an unusual sheet count.

Best for: Septic-tank households, RV owners and anyone whose plumbing has strong opinions about toilet paper.

What we left out, and why

Who Gives a Crap bamboo. The best-known plastic-free toilet paper in the world, genuinely good on packaging, and the reason it is not on this list is one line in a laboratory report: 11 ppm organic fluorine. We are not calling it unsafe — at that level nobody can tell you what the health consequence is, if any. We are saying that when six other packs with identical packaging credentials came back non-detect, there is no reason to choose the one that did not.

Seventh Generation 100% Recycled. The highest reading in the whole round at 35 ppm, roughly three times the next-highest. It is also the brand most often named when people ask what the responsible choice is. Recycled fiber is a genuinely good idea; this particular product did not screen clean.

Charmin Ultra Soft and other conventional brands. Charmin Ultra Soft registered 13 ppm, and most conventional packs come wrapped in plastic film regardless. Worth noting for honesty: several conventional papers in the same round — Scott, Angel Soft, Quilted Northern — were non-detect. They are still sold in plastic bags, which is why they are not here, but “conventional” is not a synonym for “contaminated.”

“Flushable” wipes. A different product and a worse one for this purpose: most contain synthetic fibers, they are a well-documented cause of sewer blockages, and nothing about them belongs in a plastic-free bathroom.

A bidet. Honestly, the most effective option in this entire category is to use dramatically less toilet paper, and a bidet seat does that. We have not ranked one here because this page is about which paper to buy, but if your goal is to cut the paper out rather than switch it, that is the move — and it pairs with the rest of the room in our plastic-free shower curtain guide and the plastic-free dental floss guide.

Is recycled toilet paper worse than bamboo?

The label does not predict it, and the two best pieces of evidence agree on that even though they look like they disagree. Thompson and colleagues specifically compared papers labeled as containing recycled fiber against non-recycled papers and found that recycled content did not affect the 6:2 diPAP concentrations. The consumer lab round then produced its highest single reading on a recycled product — while other recycled products, including Green Forest, Natural Value and Open Nature, came back non-detect.

Read together, those say the same thing: the fiber is not the variable, the mill is. A bamboo product from a mill with fluorinated process chemistry will test worse than a recycled product from a mill without it, and vice versa. Which is unsatisfying, because it means no shortcut on the front of a box can answer this for you — only a test of the actual product can, which is why we built the ranking on one.

Comparison Table: At a Glance

Ply, sheet counts, roll counts and packaging descriptions are each manufacturer’s own published wording, read off their live listings on October 31, 2026. The organic-fluorine column is not taken from any brand’s marketing — it is the result recorded for that brand’s bamboo tissue in EPA-certified laboratory testing commissioned by Mamavation. We are not printing prices, because Amazon changes them daily and a stale number is worse than none — tap any buy button for today’s figure.

Our Pick by Situation

• You want one decision, made once: Betterway 100% bamboo 3-ply, 360 sheets a roll.
• You want nothing plastic to arrive at all: Reel Premium, kraft box and brown paper sleeves.
• You want to spend what you already spend: Amazon Aware bamboo, 8,400 sheets.
• You are tired of changing the roll: Grove Co. Ultra Soft, 400 sheets a roll.
• Sensitive skin, or you want the plainest sheet: Caboo unbleached, no bleach, dye or fragrance.
• Septic tank, boat or RV: Save Trees 3-ply jumbo rolls.
• You want the rest of the bathroom handled: start with our plastic-free razor guide.

How We Evaluated These

We did not run our own laboratory test and we are not going to imply that we did. What we did is narrower and checkable. We started from the only brand-level PFAS screening data that exists for this category — the EPA-certified laboratory round covering 23 retail toilet papers — and we required every pick to be a product recorded as non-detect in it. That requirement alone removed the single best-known plastic-free brand on the market. We then required the pack to contain no plastic film at any layer, which we checked against each product’s own listing photograph rather than its marketing copy, and we recorded ply, sheets per roll and roll count from the live Amazon listings on October 31, 2026 so the at-a-glance table compares like with like. Every product photograph on this page is the manufacturer’s own listing image. Where the evidence is weaker than people assume — organic fluorine as a marker rather than an identification, non-detect as a limit rather than a zero, one commissioned round rather than a peer-reviewed survey — we have said so in the body rather than in a footnote.