History Guy and toilet paper

[Brian Roth]

I don't have cable TV (my choice....don't spend the money) so I seek other interesting things online.  I like this guy's videos which never seem to veer into modern politics:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=history+guy

He has a jillion vids...always interesting.  I need to contribute......

Reason I brought this up was his fascinating video about toilet paper which is in now in short supply here in Salina.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVTRpTHPs3o

Bri

 

[rackmonkey]

I watch his videos too. He covers a lot of fascinating bits of forgotten history and does a nice job telling the story.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I don't have cable TV (my choice....don't spend the money) so I seek other interesting things online.  I like this guy's videos which never seem to veer into modern politics:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=history+guy

He has a jillion vids...always interesting.  I need to contribute......

Reason I brought this up was his fascinating video about toilet paper which is in now in short supply here in Salina.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVTRpTHPs3o

Bri

I just checked and I have two rolls of TP so I could mail you one if you have a critical need.

JR

 

[Brian Roth]

Hi, John.  Thanks for the offer, but I found two 4-packs of "megaroll size" Charmin at Walgreens today.  Well stocked now!

 

[pucho812]

what a neat video.  thanks for sharing.

 

[Script]

Thanks. Didn't know about this guy. Nice prosody.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Hi, John.  Thanks for the offer, but I found two 4-packs of "megaroll size" Charmin at Walgreens today.  Well stocked now!

Good thing, I may need both of my rolls. 

I just returned from my weekly grocery shopping trip and my local Walmart shelves were cleaned of TP. I guess my neighbors were scared by the hyperbolic media reporting into imagining some kind of imminent toilet paper shortage, causing an actual toilet paper shortage. What are they thinking (rhetorical), they clearly are not thinking.

If humans are the top of the food chain, that doesn't say much for the rest of the animal kingdom.  :

JR 

PS: I was able to secure every other item on my shopping list, but I generally buy healthy foods. The freezers were picked pretty clean of processed frozen dinners (that I wouldn't buy on a bet), but I had no trouble finding my frozen blueberries. Likewise the flour aisle was almost picked clean except for the whole wheat flour that was on my list.

 

[pucho812]

I have been saying this all week....

" I would hate for a diarrhea virus to break out right now, if it did people would buy all the nasal sprays"

 

[JohnRoberts]

I have been saying this all week....

yes, thats pretty much the cause... wall to wall news reports about shoppers hoarding, leading other shoppers to fear scarcity even without any justification, and hoard themselves.

" I would hate for a diarrhea virus to break out right now, if it did people would buy all the nasal sprays"

8)

JR

 

[cyrano]

Thx, Pucho. Needed that ROFLMAO

Just returned from shopping. Some items are gone. Probably more to do with distribution than real shortages.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Thx, Pucho. Needed that ROFLMAO

Just returned from shopping. Some items are gone. Probably more to do with distribution than real shortages.

I was a little surprised. Apparently both Amazon and Walmart are hiring over 100k workers each to deal with the increased business.

I ASSumed the TP was just a short term outage and checked the walmart website to order some... The website says the items can only be purchased in the store (that didn't have any yesterday)? Catch-22....

Reminds me of the old egg joke about the farmer selling a dozen eggs for only $0.99... Of course he didn't have any eggs, but a really great price.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

I am trying to keep a low profile on social media about my personal TP drama since I don't want to scare the children.

A friend sent me this jpg and I thought it was amusing.

JR

 

[iturnknobs]

Do people realize that there must be enough food to generate "the need" for all that toilet paper? Probably not.... but they're ready for something.

 

[Tubetec]

Well ,the standard 4 inch waste pipe was considered adequate for 150 years ,
maybe with rising food consumption ,the associated weight gain of modern times and now lockdown  we'll end up having to re-evaluate.at some point.As an old Welsh buddy of mine in the building trade used say  'Feckin four inch waste pipes and six inch arseholes ,your gonna get problems '  ;D

Apparently the Japanese ,who are very fastidious about hygiene , to this day, keep the 'Sh!thouse' as a separate room from where they wash and brush their teeth, thats not rocket science at all it it? , it was SOP here in Ireland uptil the 40's , then some bright spark had a better plan. I nowadays am calling into the question the wisdom of using 8 liters of drinking water to flush away our mess, for those of us who eat in moderation a little waxed paper bag to contain the TP and jobbie so it could be safely put into solid fuel stove and incinerated makes a lot of sense, firstly the waste product would be vastly reduced in volume, second any potentially harmfull microbes would be completely destroyed , and thirdly in the event your on medications like antibiotics that wouldnt end up released into the environment ,which has its own issues ,ie resistant bacteria .

 

[Rybow]

It’s been how long now and the toilet paper supply is still a problem. As my brother said “do people think COVID comes out their asses?”

I actually read an article where the writer stated that this is people getting peace of mind. Toilet paper was on the “list of things to have stocked in case quarantine” here in Canada. Not #1 on the list (might be #2 ), but they walked away feeling they did “something”.

I think something similar happened when SARS hit to a much smaller scale than this TP fiasco.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I just read an article talking about TP production in US... Apparently there are two grades of TP... coarse used in office/factory water closets, and soft multi-ply favored by consumers, and they run across different (huge) machines.

P&G, a major maker, reports demand increased 20% for consumer TP.

They had an old machine that was mothballed, to bring it back online quickly they flew in some engineers to help get it going faster... they did, but then couldn't get commercial flights back home (from GA). P&G sent out a corporate jet to bring them home.

The TP factory suffered some COVID related interruptions, BUT NO TRUE SHORTAGE... I suspect P&G rushed to get the old machine running so quickly to take advantage of the short term panic bump in demand.

JR

 

[PRR]

I had heard that 40% of TP was used at school or work. (Maybe not 40% of pee/poop, but we used it like it was free.)

There is about no profit in domestic TP. It is virgin pulp, well processed, and bulky to warehouse and ship. The demand was historically very constant. There was about zero excess capacity ready to run, as that P&G story shows. But if they jack the price you know the next ruckus will be "price gouging" (ouch).

We in Maine have a backdoor seat because some small amount of tissue is re-processed into TP rolls around here. One re-roller took 6 months to get all permits (and grants) squared-away and start rolling. Apparently without the grants it would not have happened (in normal times).

 

[Gold]

The reason for the toilet paper shortage is that the supply chain for commercial and residential toilet paper is totally separate. No one is at work, airports, sporting events. There is a large glut of commercial toilet paper.

The amount of toilet paper used is fairly constant. The industry operates at capacity under normal circumstances. Since this is a temporary situation no one wants to invest in ramped up production.

 

[PRR]

> The industry operates at capacity under normal circumstances.

Yesterday one of the few remaining pulp-mills in Maine blew up bad.
Massive Jay, Maine mill explosion
WARNING! Bad language! The trucker swears like a sailor.
https://youtu.be/WAKso45nYtg

This mill has been through a LOT of changes recently and it isn't clear if it was making pulp for TP. What is clear is that the ripple-effect of a shut-down will be bad for the area.

The mill at Bucksport shut down 5 years ago and the town is JUST starting to turn-around. They at least are ON US Rt1 so have potential for other business; the Jay mill is far out in the woods.

 

[scott2000]