Why toilet paper keeps getting smaller and smaller | Hacker News Reader

Why toilet paper keeps getting smaller and smaller

thehustle.co

48 pointsAnon8464 comments

I switched to bidet at home anyways. Keep a pack of baby wipes in my bag for when I unfortunately need to use public (or private) restrooms stocked with the inferior toilet paper (all TP is useless in comparison to bidet or wet wipes).

Single ply, double ply. No difference to me. I still feel dirty/unclean after wiping my ass with dry af TP that has a strong tendency to tear

But… you can’t flush baby wipes, unless you want to be a monster that contributes to sewer pipe fatbergs or local blockages.

I toss them into the waste bin.

Or if you're on a septic system. Even if you're on a public sewer, clogs in the line under your property, from your house to the main sewer line, are your responsibility. If you rent, and the landlord figures out that you clogged up the sewer by flushing wipes, you'll probably pay.

Wipes are not flushable. Even if they say they are.

I believe you're mistaken:

https://www.stwater.co.uk/news/news-releases/we-applaud-new-...

Not according to my plumber. Feel free to pay thousands of dollars in plumbing bills when your pipes clog up, if you like.

We’ve had our pipes clog up, and paid thousands of dollars. Fortunately for us, it wasn’t so-called flushable wipes.

That link is a water company - they run sewer systems. Your plumber is out of touch or you're using non-flushable wipes. The two types of wipes are not made the same.

Anything other than toilet paper, which is designed to disintegrate completely in water, should not be flushed. That includes facial tissue, paper towels, and cleansing wipes. If you have modern, smooth PVC waste pipes you might get away with it but the water treatment plant won't like it.

If you have older clay or cast iron waste pipes, feel free to take your chances as GP says. I'd rather not deal with overflows and I'd rather keep my money than give it to a plumber to snake out a clogged drain line.

Let's put it this way, are any of these "flushable" wipe companies willing to insure you against plumbing costs and damages caused by their wipes?

My plumber says that there are no wipes that are actually flushable, regardless of any claims made on the packaging.

We all know about advertisements and how companies lie to us. Why would this be any different?

I’m not taking any risks with our pipes, and we’re not flushing any wipes down the drain. Only human waste and toilet paper. Nothing else. That’s the recommendation from our plumber, and I’m sticking with it.

That link is a water treatment plant company.

There are ones that are flushable. I use them at home. It specially says flushable.

Even the ones that say flushable aren’t. It’s just a marketing ploy.

Seems otherwise:

https://www.stwater.co.uk/news/news-releases/we-applaud-new-...

Hah those are exactly the ones I'm using. And the only ones wide available here anyway (even in Spain though it seems to be a UK brand)

Never have issues with them anyway.

You're arguing with a water company?

Maybe TMI, but...you don't pat dry with toilet paper after you use the bidet? I love my bidet, but I'm using approximately the same amount of TP in both cases.

I'm having a hard time believing this. I use three squares of TP after the bidet, to dry myself. In places without a bidet, I'll use a ton of paper to get everything.

How can you dry off with only a couple squares? Does your bidet have a drying fan too??

I keep a stack of small hand towels next to the bidet. Organized in clean and dirty towel stacks.

Keep a few rolls of TP for guests. Mostly sits unused otherwise. Last time I bought rolls was last year.

I do the same. got ~100 ish plain white hand towels/wash cloths that get washed with bleach. Really just used to dry my tushy after using the bidet.

If you're at home, just leave a small towel where you put the TP roll. You're already clean, so now you're just drying yourself off.

Perhaps if you use soap you’d be clean enough for that, assuming you were the only one using the towel.

I share space with my partner and we are both very clean in general.

I certainly haven't done biological analysis, but in practice I'm totally clean afterwards. Doing a basic visual and smell test, the towel is definitely clean. Far cleaner than had I used TP. We just throw the small towel in the clothes wash after use and keep a clean stack near the toilet.

Haven't bought toilet paper in many years, wouldn't go back.

Ah I see. A stack of towels is very different from “a towel”.

I cant bring myself to get rid of tp especially for if guests come by, but imagine towels do a better job of drying than paper.

It isn't like you get that wet either. I don't know how big or hairy your butthole is, but it isn't like I'm getting a giant part of my body soaking wet.

It is just a couple drops of water after you shake off. If you're wearing underwear, it isn't that big of a deal if a couple drops of water get on there. You probably sweat more than that into your clothes each day.

People make a big deal out of something that really isn't.

First thing I do when I move is install a bidet (bought the house I’m in now, so just replaced the toilets with fully integrated ones).

Not buying much tp any more of course, but it still serves a purpose.

With a bidet, I probably use two squares after a visit, just to remove moisture. There is no way I could operate with two squares without a bidet.

I would get one, but my apartment lease forbids them on "water damage" reasons. I've only seen a clause like this in my most recent lease.

The reason for this is that bidets have had a massive upswing in popularity, and unfortunately many are poor quality and/or fit, installed incorrectly, or both. My family mostly works in the trades and I did as well in college, would not call myself a pro but I'm the friend you call when you have a plumbing problem and want an opinion before calling in a real plumber.

The number of poorly fitting bidet attachment seats that have been badly installed I've seen is quite high. If I owned the bathroom and someone wanted to add a bidet, I too would have my concerns. A ban is crazy, but I think it's totally valid to at least have a plumber inspect and sign off on the work.

Not sure what you mean by poorly fitting. I've only purchased one bidet attachment but i don't see how it could do any damage unless you don't turn the water off or empty the toilet tank on install. Are you saying the water line leaks on some bidets after install?

Not a plumber but I’ve installed a few bidets in my homes and it’s easy to see how the flexible supply line could leak if tightened too much or not enough. Toilet braided steel supply lines themselves are supposedly supposed to be replaced every 5-10 years to reduce the risk of bursting.

I put water alarms connected to my security system behind each bidet equipped toilet.

I can definitely say that my cheap first bidet leaked after about a month on instal. Not from the water lines but rather from the case of the thing became slightly unwelded.

Mine has a pipe attachment that's flimsy plastic, and tends to eject itself after a while. It'll definitely lead to flooding, so I've installed a water sensor under it.

Point out that literally every single house in SE Asia has one.

Hm yeah but they also use squat toilets in many cases. I can't deal with those.

Super rare to see a squat toilet in Vietnam these days except in rural places. It is all bum guns, everywhere... and exceptionally sketchy plumbing (and 220v electrical for that matter). Somehow it works well enough.

Oh ok I was mainly in Thailand where they had a lot of them, even in the office I worked for a while (luckily they had a few mnrmal ones too). They did have bum guns for washing in many cases even with the squat toilets.

Not sure about Vietnam. Never been there, but Thailand is SE Asia too :)

$/pound would be a more sensible metric to price compare. Still gameable, but less so than rolls/sheets/double/mega/ply/etc.

TP is certainly softer, more comfortable and has more plys than ever. A per sheet analysis of a roll likely isn’t the best comparison as there is absolutely an upper bound on the total roll size, especially in older homes with built into the wall ceramic toilet paper holders. Those suckers confirm to me that toilet paper rolls are larger than ever because lots of new toilet paper rolls won’t fit in those things.

Dispensers are only getting larger which to me means rolls are only getting bigger. They’re very likely not rolled as tightly because they are softer and they very likely have less sheets because the sheets are now 2 or 3 ply. So really it’s 2 or 3 times the total amount of sheets, just plied together ?

From the manufacturing side we know that softwood is cheaper than hardwood, and maybe that’s driven the all of the “softest” toilet paper campaigns. ? Just a thought for which I have no evidence

Producers should be required to make disclosures in officially recognized boards/gazettes before substantially changing quality/composition/recipe/materials/function of any good. Make it 3 to 6 months. A consumer should not be screwed for buying an inferior product for the same price because a producer decided to reduce quality to increase margins. It's a form of information asymmetry that leads to inefficiency in markets.

This works even more easily if the product already needs to be registered in some gov't registry. For example books and with the case of substituting good quality paper with worse quality paper (less gsm or such).

The all-purpose retort is "but that is proprietary information!"

Thank goodness for Costco, their rolls are huge. The abundance of paper dust that comes off their rolls however I can do without.

To align with numbers cited in the article:

Kirkland Signature 30 pack[1]:

380 sheets/roll

4.5"×4" sheets

$23.49 cost per pack

$0.016/square foot

Kirkland Signature Ultra Soft 36 pack[2]:

231 sheets/roll

4.5"×4" sheets

$24.99/pack

$0.024/square foot

Charmin Ultra Soft 30 pack from Costco[3]

213 sheets/roll

4.5"×4.2" sheets

$27.49/pack

$0.033/square foot

[1] https://www.costco.com/kirkland-signature-bath-tissue%2c-2-p...

[2] https://www.costco.com/kirkland-signature-ultra-soft-bath-ti...

[3] https://www.costco.com/charmin-ultra-soft-bath-tissue%2c-2-p...

Most of my family swears by Costco TP, and I don’t understand it. I think it’s trash compared to Charmin Ultra Strong. I dread needing to use the toilet when visiting.

Here is why they do it. This happens with almost all consumer products by the way: candy bars, breakfast cereal, you name it.

They start out with a size and a price. At some point they start to decrease the size, but keep the price the same. They don't call your attention to this. Most people don't really notice. At some point they increase the size and the price, with splashy labeling and advertising "new larger size." You might notice the price increase, but you figure well you're getting more.

Repeat.

It’s called “shrinkflation”.

How much money are people spending on toilet paper? Worrying about cost per wipe seems like one of the least economically productive things one can do.

We were starting to blow our household/toiletries budget every month so we found another brand we all agreed on that's a little lower quality but has more sheets per roll and we started landing in budget again. I didn't do any analysis beyond that.

I would suggest actually doing a small analysis on the idea of replacing that with a bidet. It will be surprising how it is more cost effective and comfortable option.

I’ve been hearing people talk about the miracles of bidets online for years. I took a trip to Tokyo a few years back and thought I’d finally see what all the fuss was about. I have to say, I absolutely hated it. After the first week I gave up even trying to use it. The seat warmers were also pretty unpleasant, imo.

There were some pretty cool automatic seat covers that I liked, but most of the other stuff I wasn’t a fan of.

Half of the awfulness is the surprise, the second half is getting the smallest possible delta between water and sphincter temperature. Lol !

I think bidets are kind of cool, but other than for your private ensuite they’re pretty impractical. Toto has the best temperature control systems though IMHO

I'll second the bidet. It's not only more economical, but so, so much cleaner.

> The note from P&G on my 1992 toilet paper said Charmin Ultra had shrunk “because it is so thick we couldn't put as many sheets on and keep the rolls the same size.”

> Uh-huh.

I mean...that makes plenty of sense. My parents love this ultra-thin single-ply crap that gets plenty of footage on the roll, but it doesn't really matter when you have to pull off six feet and fold it a dozen times to get a good wipe.

I buy Charmin Ultra Strong. The “Super Mega” rolls are absolutely massive. They for sure would not fit in a lot of standard holders. When I was buying a holder recently I was actually worried about what would fit in most standard designs and bought one that seemed to be the most forgiving.

While I agree that the “Super Mega” and “6 rolls in 1” marketing is silly nonsense, the size of the rolls today are comically large. I actually think the Super Mega are too big. It’s 362 sheets of 2-ply, which is like 724 sheets of single-ply (and likely a thicker ply than decades old stuff). The benchmark from the article seemed to be 650 sheets of single-ply.

Maybe the industry just needs a new metric. Measuring stuff based on some made up roll size isn’t helpful. We can all see how big the rolls are when we’re buying the stuff. Does anyone actually look at the sheet count?

> On top of that, many companies, especially in China, play “the inventory game,” McClay adds. They buy huge quantities of pulp on spot when prices are low — sending the price upward — and avoid buying at the higher rates, sending the price back down.

...shouldn't that, on the contrary, stabilise the prices? You know, with the buffers now in place?

Indeed, why are th western companies not themselves stocking up in gluts?

Always buying at spot prices is rather unsophisticated behavior. I'd expect a mega corp to operate a team of experts to identify opportunities. Why are they instead taking the market price and leaving no buffer?

What about thickness?

There's no a way a roll of toilet paper that's 3x as long would fit in a standard holder.

The thickness of TP is manipulated upwards by adding voids between the layers, this is marketed as "air pockets, air cushions, etc) but it's nothing more than a marketing trick to explain the cheapening of TP

While it's true you don't want an very dense paper to maximize absorbency, the large voids in TP don't affect it's absorbency in a significant way because they are thin and weak and completely colapse when wet. Get rid of the gimmicky air pockets and you'd decrease the thickness by half at least.

Edit: you can see this for yourself with a little experiment at home. Get yourself a air-puffed TP (Walmart's house brand is a particularly egregious example) and drizzle a little water on on it, you'll be able to see it's volume actually decreases as it's fluffy air pockets colapse when wet. Compare this to the behavior of a non-scam fluffy absorber like Sodium Polyacrylate (diapers) which will swell in size when wet.

I buy Scott toilet paper and AFAICT it's the same as it ever was. I like it because there is a lot of paper on a roll.

Edit: Well I see that TFA reports that Scott tissue rolls have shrunk also. I never noticed. I was pretty sure they still say "1000 sheets per roll"

Looks like a roll of cash register receipt paper these days.

Next thing we will see is a roll of 1000 sheets... Just really tiny ones...

just wait until they realize they can perforate down the middle and double the sheet count!

Stinkflation.

Because the Koch Bros are only billionaires

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