Since this is COVID-19 related, I thought I’d put this here. Mods, feel free to move as needed.
According to the article, it’s not that we’re going to the bathroom more, it’s WHERE we’re going to the bathroom…specifically, more at home. We’re not using facilities at restaurants, movie theaters, or work, where the TP is commercial-grade, not consumer-grade.
Since retail TP is made in different facilities than consumer TP it would be a heavy lift for them to switch, especially since they’d have to switch back when this is over.
I was fortunate to grab some TP on Amazon and the package is arriving on Sunday. But I’m not sure the shortage is going away any time soon.
I read that article last night at work and I hadn’t really considered where we are using toilet paper as a problem. I had previously stated that the market for toilet paper is fairly static, I was wrong about that.
People really are using a lot more toilet paper at home. They aren’t crapping on company time, at school, in public parks and other facilities, it is all at home now for a lot of people.
The typical family, if there is such a thing, say two adults going to work, kids in school and after school activities, public events like movies and concerts, all that pooping for many people across the country and world is now happening at home. So there really is a sudden increase in demand for consumer use and less for commercial use.
People using the bathroom at home may mean that have to buy more toilet paper, but not in the amounts that they’re buying it.
If, for example, a 6 pack would last you a month, there was no reason to run out and buy 3 48-packs. Even if you use double, that would still be a year’s worth at your current rate.
We were all wrong, including the authors of most earlier articles on the subject which said exactly that.
Do we really crap as much as the article hints, while we’re at school or work? It’s been my personal experience that, absent an attack of the runs I prefer to wait until I get home. The home bagnio is simply more comfortable than any public restroom could be. I don’t have to worry about putting my keys and change on a dirty floor because there’s no other place to put them.
And in public school, at least when I was there, the doorless stalls made it a non-starter. I used the school bathroom to take a dump about twice in eleven years of attendance.
While the article raises a disturbingly good argument, I’m not sure it’s the whole story.
Its possible, but from what I recall the toilet paper shelves were empty before things actually locked down. I was visiting family in a nearby state and I was listening to the radio on the way to the grocery store where they discussed shortages of TP. When I got there the TP aisle was still full so I didn’t worry about it. A few days later there was talk of closing down the schools and limiting gatherings, and when I went back the aisle was empty despite the fact that lockdowns, working from home and school closings hadn’t even started yet. They were just rumored to be starting.
FWIW, I’ve noticed in the last 2 weeks its getting slightly easier to find TP. The aisle used to be totally empty. Then a week after the hoarding first started there was some of the cheapest store brand TP on the shelves. Now about 3 weeks after this first started I was able to get a 12 pack of cottonelle at the grocery store which should last me until summer. There were still multiple packs and lots of people at the store didn’t have TP in their carts. So I think it was to a large degree about hoarding in fear that everything will be shut down for months. Now that I have my 12 pack, even if I see more TP on the shelves I have no incentive to buy it, and I’m guessing a lot of people are reaching that point where there is no reason to buy anymore, which means the stocks will pick up again.
Also taking a BM is kind of a private matter. A lot of people prefer to do that at home whenever possible, and I’m assuming that is where most TP gets used. So I don’t know how much demand goes up since a lot of people prefer to just urinate when they are away from home. I don’t know if tons of people were taking BMs at work and school, now they’re stuck at home. I think most people prefer to do that before or after school when they’re at home.
I don’t think the article is claiming that the shortage has been caused by increased use. There’s no doubt there was a lot of hoarding & panic buying. What the article is saying is, don’t necessarily expect things to go back to normal after the panic buying eases up.
Although I think there is an important factor that they aren’t taking into account: Now that we all know there is a TP shortage, we are probably using less TP per visit. I know I used to use a lot more than necessary, and now I use the bare minimum I can get away with.
In most places I’ve worked at, the stalls were used fairly often. And obviously, women use toilet paper for both #1 and #2.
Also it’s not just work and school. Think restaurants, bars, airports, hotels, gas stations, sports venues, theaters, etc - all the places we aren’t going to anymore.
I’m geeky enough to want to know how often I’m going to have to buy the 9- and 12-roll packs we usually get at home. Since mid-March when they closed the Firebug’s school and my wife and I started teleworking full-time, our home TP use is up maybe 20%. That’s all. So I’m with those who are saying the ‘where’ doesn’t make that much of a difference in consumption of TP designed for home use.
People would gladly buy commercial-grade TP right now. It ain’t great, but it’s damn sure better than running out. They should package it to sell in the stores, and if they did, the stores would buy it from them, and people would buy it from the stores.
If the TP manufacturers would take the TP made for home consumption and package it all in 4-packs rather than the 18-packs I’m mostly seeing these days when I see it at all, and stores limited purchases to one or two 4-packs at a time, my WAG is that it wouldn’t take that long before TP was almost always available again. If everybody can buy only a few rolls at a time, then everybody can buy a few rolls, and if the shelves aren’t empty of TP, people won’t feel like they have to grab it while it’s there.
That wouldn’t explain why the stuff sold to businesses (I.e. those huge, continuous rolls) are in just as short of supply. I discovered that when I tried to buy some.
As for what they should do, don’t forget that we’re supposed to be going shopping as little as possible, as part of social distancing and isolation. People thus NEED to buy more than they previously would.
Where did you try to buy it from? The warehouse store or Amazon might be out of it, sure, but what about Grainger or Sysco or a janitorial supply house or a restaurant supply store or any of the other businesses that aren’t open to the public?
I found paper towels a few days ago, also encouraging. There’s some overlap in how various paper products can be used outside of the bathroom, e.g. for nose-blowing.
I guess a lot of people aren’t as reluctant to use public toilets as me. I’d only do something requiring toilet paper in a public toilet at the office or anywhere else as an absolute last resort.
I’m reasonably sure that women don’t use nearly as much TP for #1 as all of us do for #2.
Speaking of elimination euphemisms, I happened to read somewhere about a good one popular in some country or region of Africa: short call or long call.
I think that now would be a splendid time to get over the debunked notion that we will all drop dead of dehydration if we aren’t constantly drinking endless bottles of water a day.
I think in the beginning, some people were worried about literal lockdowns-- being challenged by armed police when they went out-- so they wanted to make sure they didn’t have to go out for a couple of months. And maybe overestimated how much TP they’d actually need for a week. No, you don’t go through 6 rolls a day, unless you maybe are that family with 20 children.