99% Invisible - 397- Wipe Out

Episode Date: April 8, 2020

If you have tried to buy toilet paper in the last few weeks, you might have found yourself staring at an empty aisle in the grocery store, wondering where all the toilet paper has gone. Although it may seem like a product that we've always been reliant upon, toilet paper has not actually been around very long, and may not be as essential as we think it is. Instead, it's the product of very good marketing. Plus, we talk about the bane of wastewater utilities everywhere: flushable wipes. Wipe Out

This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. If you tried to buy toilet paper in the last few weeks, I suspect you might have found yourself staring at an empty aisle in the grocery store. One drain where all the toilet paper has gone. The first thought that came to my mind was that miserable hoarders took it all.

And then I started contemplating the volume of a package of toilet paper, especially those massive, you know, like the equivalent of 96 rolls packs that you see at Target, and I thought, if just a couple dozen people bought one extra package, that would clean out an entire shelf. And buying one extra package is not that unreasonable

if your whole family is trapped in the house and not using the toilet at work or at school or out in the world. And this run of toilet paper is not limited to the United States. And I'll show you a man wrote this valid in the world. And this run of toilet paper is not limited to the United States. And Australian man wrote this valid about the toilet paper shortage. Now we've faced wars and cyclones,

we've survived the war as one. But a toilet paper shortage, what made us come undone. For the people started hoarding all the last remaining sheets. There were punch-shones in the aisles, there was panic in the streets. Me cracks in need of weapons, someone cried in desperation.

What else can I bloody use to solve this situation? And in the Netherlands, a Dutch worker went viral after he filmed a video of himself zooming around a warehouse stacked to the rafters with toilet paper, laughing maniacally. and over toilet paper. I can confirm that firsthand. This is not an IPI contributor, Stephanie Joyce. So Stephanie, what have you seen firsthand? Yeah, so a month ago, when people really started going crazy over toilet paper,

I actually heard about a company here in New Mexico where I live that makes toilet paper. It's called Rose's Southwest. Now, for obvious reasons, this is not a company that I had heard of before the coronavirus. But when stories started, you know, coming out about people running out of toilet paper, Rose's announced that it was going to start doing public sales of toilet paper from its warehouse in Albuquerque. For those of you struggling to find toilet paper, we found a place here in Albuquerque with lots of it.

It's cash only, 35 bucks for 96 rolls. So they're just starting it. So what do they normally do? Yeah, so roses doesn't usually sell directly to the public. There's this funny division in the toilet paper world between the at-home and the away from home markets. And roses isn't a way from home wholesaler. So when you're out in the world at a restaurant or at a sports stadium or a convenience store, they sell toilet paper to those

businesses. But as you said, of course, now fewer people are out in the world using those businesses. Instead, everyone is trying to stock up their paper at home where they're spending all of their time. And that's part of the reason why it's flying off the shelves. And so in an attempt to help people who are trying to get toilet paper, Roses has decided to sell directly to the public at a kiosk right outside their factory. And I was curious who's gonna show up to these sales? So I decided to go down to their next public sale. It was on a Friday morning, a few weeks back.

I should say before New Mexico asked people to stay at home. I woke up super, super early, and I headed down to Albuquerque to check it out. And let me tell you, I was not prepared for this scene. This is a tape of me when I arrived. It is insane. There are cars literally as far as I can see in any direction waiting in line to purchase toilet paper.

Wait, so there are like multiple lines of cars filled with people all waiting to buy toilet paper from this one key ask. Yes, coming from literally every direction. I found out later that the longest line was almost three miles long. Three miles. Yes, which is crazy.

So of course, I started to interview people who are waiting in their cars in line. And just a warning, the audio quality isn't super great. I was using this really long poll to hold the microphone so I could stay at least six feet away from people. And I was also talking to people through their rolled down passenger side windows for the most part.

So it's not the best audio quality. But one of the first people I talked to was this woman named Brittany Perea. She was there with her three-year-old daughter, Azul Saina. How long have you been in line today? Um, so seven. Wow. Yes. Seven.

Yeah, well, she needed the bathroom, so I had to go take her to the bathroom and I lost my place in line. That's not again. Oh my God. What's your plan if I had to go take her to the bathroom and I lost my place in line. That's not again. Oh my God. What's your plan if she has to go to bathroom again? We did. We had to. I just opened the door and she used it on the side. I told her I was a home to like you're sitting and just pee.

I told her. Really? Yeah. What way did it on the side of here? Oh my Lord. She had her daughter pee out the door of the car while waiting for toilet paper. There's so many levels of irony to that. I know. And just horror. Yeah. Oh my god.

Yeah. Yeah. And Brittany realized how insane all of this was. She told me that like when she had seen the line earlier in the week when she was running errands, she had laughed at the people who were lined up. She thought they were totally ridiculous. But then she actually started running low on toilet paper and she went to half a dozen grocery stores and they were all completely out. I saw this line last week on Friday and I was like, these people are ridiculous. But I'm down to like two rows. Yeah, I need to have a favorite. If I had like five or six, I wouldn't bother, but I'm down to like two rows. Yeah, I need to have a favorite. If I had like five or six, I wouldn't bother, but yeah, I'm on my last two rows. So yeah, but it doesn't make no sense

to me. So she's not like a hoarder or anything trying to get a year supply of toilet paper. So she's fine or even to sell toilet paper or anything like she's legitimately out and she was one of those people actually like me who was like, this is a non-perishable supply. She's the non-perishable product. Why is anyone having to stock up on it, but then she's just caught and find that she just doesn't have any. Yeah, exactly.

And that's what I heard from people over and over again as I walked down the line. Never in the lifetime would I thought I'd be waiting to like for Toyota paper. I could see waiting for food, a box of food, but. Okay, Roman, one last person for you. This is a woman named Mary Salas Cedillo and she was there with her granddaughters,

Felia and Amor. She told me that they woke up at 4 a.m. to get in line, which meant that by the time I talked to them, they'd argue in line for almost five hours. Oh my God. And it's not like they just woke up and got in line. No, they strategized. They didn't have anything to eat or drink all morning

so they wouldn't have to go to the bathroom. Yeah, I told the girls I'll buy you something to eat afterward. Are you hungry? Not really. Not really. I am. She is. When I was a kid, I used to beg my mom to take me with her on errands, but that's got to be the worst errand of all time. But what's clear is that people are willing to go to extreme lengths to avoid running out of toilet paper. Yeah, I mean, obviously you get the point. But I find this super fascinating. I mean, toilet paper, it's like, I guess important,

but it's also not perishable. It's not food or water. So like, why were these people desperate for toilet paper? So this is a good question, and the more the reasons why we wanted to talk to you. Because I want to know actually, how we became so reliant on this one product. Right, and so I decided to actually look into the

history a little bit and fundamentally I think this is a story about the genius of marketing. Because obviously for most of history people would have thought it was insane to manufacture something specifically for the purpose of cleaning yourself. Basically, people would use whatever an open intended at hand, including their own hands. So this is Ron Bloomer. And Bloomer wrote a book called Wiped. It's a history of Riren Hygiene. And he says that for most of human existence you know people didn't have anything like paper they used rocks they used shells they used moss or you know they use the original cleaner water the idea is you you wet your hand

with water and you use your your left hand to clean your rear end and then you wash your hand and then you rinse and repeat, as they say. I mean, this makes sense, there's some cultures, like where your left hand is used for ablutions, for cleaning, and that's just part of the ritual, and then your right hand is for eating and greeting people. So water makes a ton of sense to me, shells on the other hand,

do not make that much sense. Yeah, I didn't get into too much detail with Ron about how exactly that would work. The historical method that I personally found myself questioning that he described was the Romans. They had a sponge on a stick, which was sitting in a pale of water in these communal bathrooms. And they would use it to clean their rear ends and then they'd put it back in the bucket. And then the next person would swish it around, hopefully,

pick it up and then clean their rear end. Oh my God, that's horrifying. I actually can't think about it for too long. It's just like, I'm telling myself they didn't know what we know about germs. They didn't know. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So there's all these methods that I think sound a little wild to us today, but there actually is one part of the world where disposable toilet paper has been used for a really long time. And that's China. China is,

of course, where paper was invented. And starting in 500 or so, there are records of paper being used for wiping. And then starting in the 1300s, there are actually records of paper being made specifically for use in the toilet. So when does the idea of using paper catch on in the rest of the world in the West? So in the 16 and 1700s, paper is starting to become pretty widespread. The first newspapers get printed, you know, paper that's explicitly meant to be thrown out. And then in the late 1700s, we actually figured out how to make paper out of wood. It was made out of rags before.

And suddenly paper gets a whole lot cheaper. And most people are still using whatever is on hand. But it also does become common for people to start using paper. Now, this isn't paper that's specifically made for bum wiping. It takes a few more decades before anyone was actually making paper that was intended

for that particular purpose. That was in the 1850s. And Bloomer credits a guy named Joseph Gaity with selling the first actual toilet paper in the Western world. And Gaity's sales pitch was basically using newspaper was bad for you. And so he decided to make this form of paper, which was thin and as he sold it more gentle on your delicate membranes and helping if you had hemorrhoids. So this toilet paper, would we recognize it as the toilet paper we have today? I don't think so.

No. It came in a box like tissues and it was made of hemp. And Blumer actually told me he got his hands on an original box of it. And it feels a bit like what we would call tissue paper. I don't think we would be very happy using it, but it was thin and I guess it would sort of do the job. So this was not a hugely popular product.

It cost a lot of money, so only rich people could afford it. And like most people really just didn't see the need when there was so much free paper out there. The Sears and Robot catalog cost absolutely nothing. It came in the mail. The whole toilet paper thing just didn't seem necessary to most people. And it might not have taken off.

If not for the fact that around the same time, there's another big change that happens in the human waste disposal world, and that changes indoor plumbing. So now people, you know, not only have toilets inside their houses, but they are, you know, those toilets are connected to pipes and sewer systems

as a way of disposing of the waste. Exactly, yeah. But as anyone who has spent time plunging a toilet before can tell you, you can't just be flushing newspaper down a toilet. You need something that's more delicate than that. Oh, like Gidey's paper, that's all. So for tourists, yeah.

Exactly. So Gidey actually pivots, and he starts marketing his paper differently as good for use with indoor toilets and other people start to get in on the business. And among the early adopters is this guy from Albany, New York named Seth Wheeler and Wheeler is really the guy who creates toilet paper as you and I know it. Wheeler came up with the idea and packed into the idea of having a role that was perforated so that you could rip off a sheet at a time.

And also he had to invent all the mechanisms, the roller, to hold it because people wouldn't have it. So he would sell the unit as a whole. So this guy is responsible for not only putting toilet paper on a roll, but actually dividing it into sheets. It really is the toilet paper as we know it. Yeah, and he's really, he's a toilet paper inventor.

In years after, he pens all these other ideas related to toilet paper. Some of them I would say more practical than others. He has the patent on hexagonal toilet paper, which he thought would be easier to tear from the roll. He has a patent on half a dozen different kinds of paper holder designs. Basically, he spent the rest of his life thinking about how to improve toilet paper.

I love people like that. I love people who are obsessed with these things. I mean, I don't know if he's a pleasure to be around as a person But I'm glad those people exist in the world. Yeah, I can't imagine what his dinner conversation would have been like but He was definitely a super successful inventor And he was a fine business man, you know his company sold a lot of toilet paper But he is not the person who actually makes toilet paper really an American essential. That is one of his competitors at the time, the Scott paper company. And this is the same Scott paper company that sells toilet paper today that you see.

Like you used to see in the toilet paper aisle. Like you used to see in the toilet paper aisle, the very same, yes. And the Scott company starts making toilet paper right around you used to see in the toilet paper aisle, the very same, yes. And the Scott company starts making toilet paper right around the same time as Wheeler, but they are much better at marketing. They take that original idea that toilet paper is a solution to hemorrhids, and they really run with that. And you would see these horrifying ads and newspapers and magazines of doctors with scary-looking surgical instruments. And the doctor was saying to the other doctor, well, we wouldn't have to operate on this man if his wife had bought Scott toilet paper.

And they would also attack their rivals by saying, well, so and so has wood chips or splinters in their toilet paper, you wouldn't want to use that, would you? It was nothing like fear to sell your product. Totally, yeah. But they also sold it as this sophisticated luxury item. That was their two pronged approach. So, there's this one ad that's in Bloomer's book that describes women of intuitive daintiness buying Scott tissue.

Intuitive daintiness. Oh, I love it. It's so terrible. It's so terrible. Yeah. And it worked. They basically end up owning the market through the 1950s. And they make toilet paper.

This essential household product for most Americans. So for like less than 50 years, toilet paper goes from non-existent in the Western world to totally indispensable because of the Scott Paper Company. Yes. So indispensable that people are willing to wait five hours in line for it. I mean, toilet paper now is a $30 billion industry. We use, as Americans, I look this up, we use 28 pounds of toilet paper a year per person, which is 141 rolls.

So many trees. So how are toilet paper manufacturers keeping up during this time of increased demand? I mean, I wanted to know that too. So when I was down in Albuquerque, I actually set up a meeting with the sales and marketing manager for Rose's Southwest. A guy named Gibson Orcher. Good time to be in the bathroom business for sure. Bath tissue.

That's right. That's the sexy term for it, right? Bath tissue. That's so much better than toilet paper. Okay, maybe not, but yeah, we do refer to it in the industry as a bath tissue. So is there actually a short supply of bath tissue then? I mean, yes and no, right?

Yes, there is a shortage if you're trying to buy it at the grocery store. But if you take a step back and look at the entire toilet paper supply chain, the answer is no. Only a lot of other things that are kind of hard to find at the moment, the toilet paper supply chain is actually almost entirely here in the US, or at least here in North America. And so even though the coronavirus has disrupted a lot of things, it actually hasn't disrupted the toilet paper supply chain.

You know, the trees are still getting cut down, paper mills are still running. You know, roses has actually added an extra shift to increase production and try and keep up with the demand. But keep in mind, Roman, it's not like people are actually consuming toilet paper any faster than usual. They are consuming it differently. So people are using more toilet paper at home, as opposed to at work or at restaurants. But that's not more toilet paper overall. That's just a breakdown in where the toilet paper is going.

And that's the change that suppliers, like roses, are currently adjusting to. So eventually, the supply should catch up to the demand. And in the meantime, hopefully you have enough rolls to get you through. Hopefully, yep, or you have to get creative. You know, even Gibson, who is, I will remind you, an actual toilet paper salesman was willing to admit that, like, you know, when it comes down to it, toilet paper is not that essential. If you had to take society down to like its survival level, we can live without it, but we don't want to live without it. And so we're seeing the stockpiling so that they can sort of check that off of their mental list of concerns and move on to the next

one if it's something they can go out and buy. So when I was outside of the factory interviewing people, I actually did ask everyone that I talked to in line what their backup plan was in case they ran out of toilet paper. And obviously a lot of people were just like, no, not going there. That's not possible. I will not run out of toilet paper. But a few people had actually thought about it and had some interesting answers, including Brittany Pide out, the woman who I told you about who had her daughter pee out of the door of the car. She told me that as a kid, her family actually used newspaper. You know, we grew up a little poor with like great grandma and we'd stop

it up in newspapers and... Oh wait, tell me more about that. That is that word. Just get the newspaper and you know, ruffle it up a little bit to make it soft. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And then that's how we used to back when I was little. That is a good tip, although I should stress here that you should not flush newspapers down the toilet.

But if you want to support local journalism and have a backup clean system all at the same time, you know, subscribe to the paper. Yes, all for supporting your local newspaper. The other thing a lot of people said is that they just use water if they ran out of toilet paper, which, surprise, is actually how most of the world cleans themselves after going to the bathroom. 70% of the world doesn't use toilet paper,

and most of those people just use water. In some places, they use bidais, in most of the Muslim world, people clean themselves with water in their left hand. And I think that sounds maybe to some people, like it's unsanitary, but let me remind you that toilet paper sounds really gross to a lot of the rest of the world. Like you're just kind of smushing things around down there, not actually getting clean. And you know, a few studies have actually shown

that toilet paper does it very little to stop germs from getting onto your skin. So, like, not actually more sanitary. Not to mention that I'm sure you remember the original claim that made toilet papers so popular that it prevents damage to your delicate regions. That is just not true. Toilet paper actually can make hemorrhoids worse.

Doctors are not true. The toilet paper actually can make hemorrhids worse. Doctors are not fans. Yeah, I had a friend who had some surgery down in those areas and he always washed himself thoroughly with soap and water rather than using paper because it was so sensitive. And he needed to get it more clean. And he said this thing and it always stuck with me is that if you got feces on your hand

You wouldn't use a piece of paper to clean it off you would clean it off with soap and water. I mean, that's what I'm saying It's not good in design. It's just good marketing. It's just good marketing. That's exactly right. Yeah Of course, you know bad design can be comforting and especially in these times if it makes you feel better Go out and buy your toilet paper. But if you can't find any, then maybe consider joining your friend and the rest of the world in using water, and then you can wash your hands. Which is another thing we should all be doing a lot more of.

Everyone, keep washing your hands. Well, thank you so much, Stephanie. This was really great. I learned a lot. You're welcome Yes, sir that is thirty five dollars All right, so how to forty you have five dollars change here. Did you receive? So I can drive up this way give it to the sponsor gentleman over there will get you loaded, make sure to stay in your vehicle for me, sir.

Thank you. Thank you. When we come back, Avery Trollfoman has a very important message from the East Bay Municipal Utility District, and I'm guessing all other wastewater public utilities around the world as well, about what you should not flush down your toilet.

After this, here is a reach-offman. After its journey, from a tree to a factory to a store to your closet to your bathroom into the basin, toilet paper flushes into your private sewer lateral, and that wastewater goes to a public sewer line, to a facility where it gets cleaned. The first part is collection and we screen it. We take out all of the big pieces. So, you know, sometimes we find boots.

Sometimes we find animal carcass. Did you say boots? Yeah, like a boot, like a foot boot. Nelsea Rodriguez is a public information representative with East Bay Municipal Utility District, also known as East Bay Mud. East Bay Mud provides fresh water from way up in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and then after that water is not so fresh, they gather it up again. And we treat it. We disinfect it, we take out bacteria and virus, we clean it so that it's safe to be able to release it to the San Francisco Bay. They run it through what they call digesters. There are 11 of them on the plant.

There are these circular, massive basins that are just constantly churning. You put the wastewater into this digester and then we put a microbe in there and the microbe speed off of the bacteria in there. So they're getting plump and they're then producing methane gas, which we convert and use that gas to help run the plants. I went on a tour of this facility once. It is as awesome as it is disgusting. I mean, it smells like sewage, but the machinery is objectively extraordinary. This machinery is big and expensive. And so when we have issues of something that shouldn't be

in the wastewater system coming up and slamming into our filters, it can take a filter out of service for a while while we have to replace it. And that's just money that we're really just throwing down the drain. Which is why they filter out bike tires and boots and other big objects. But it is also why East Bay Mud would like you

to use toilet paper. Because it's been, it breaks down almost instantaneously with in water. Paper towel, not so much, even less with a wipe. Even the wipes that say that they're flushable? Yes, especially the wipes that say they're flushable. It's an advertising campaign, it's a marketing scheme that is not true.

Do not get anyone at your local utility started about quote-unquote flushable wipes. Those wipes, when they are flushed, they collect because they're kind of floating in water, and then they all start to bunch together, and they can create these huge, we call them in the industry, we call them turkeys. Because they look like turkeys. They're these huge globs of gross wipes that just slam into our filters and they can be really disruptive to the machinery. Since the shelter in place order when there was a sudden demand for toilet paper

Nelsie says they've seen a lot more wipes show up in the waste water. We're really asking the public to please do not flush those things. But if you don't have access to toilet paper, what do you do? What's your next best option? Stacial tissues are decent enough, they're still not preferred, they're not as thin as toilet paper. It may be a last resort, but you know a cloth, a actual fabric cloth with soap and water, jumping in the shower, we're really asking for those kinds of things. You can use the wipes, for sure use the wipes, but throw them in the trash, not in a toilet. I mean, that's what you say mud is going to do to them anyway. We just toss that thing in the garbage anyway. So you can save, you can help us save public wastewater rates, public money by not breaking

our system with these wipes. NLC is one of the East Bay mud employees who's able to work from home. And East Bay mud is putting some of their major projects on hold, but they can't put everything on hold. We certainly can't stop the treating water. We can't stop fixing pipes that are broken. So I was curious. Last time I went to the store,

I saw that people were buying big packs of toilet paper and also buying gallons of water. I didn't really get why, but because I saw everyone else buying water, I bought some too. I assumed we were all bracing for some sort of mad max dystopian future where water would become currency Which is a future. I don't want to rule out completely But Nelsie says it's not imminent at least we're lucky here in northern California

It's understandable that people get get panicked But there's no need to when it comes to your water like your water is fine. We're great We do however though to when it comes to your water. Like, your water is fine, we're great. We do, however, though, this is a really important point. We do recommend that everybody should have emergency water. It's just that East Bay mud can't control what happens underground. A pipe could still break, and they would still have to come fix it.

Yes, but it could mean that we have to turn off your water for, I don't know, four to 12 hours. And in those instances, you will meet your emergency water supply. And we can all help avoid this in the first place by not flushing wipes, or tires, or boots, or anything else that's not toilet paper. There are two things you can flush down the toilet. Things that come out of your body and toilet paper. That's it. That's the PSA. Sorry if you can never eat turkey again.

99% Invisible was produced this week by Stephanie Joyce and Avery Trouffleman, edited by Joe Rosenberg. Mixed in tech production by Sherefusif, music by Sean Rial. Katie Mingle is our senior producer, Kurt Colstad is the digital director. The rest of the team is Emmett Fitzgerald, Delaney Hall, Chris Baroube, Vivian Lay, Sophia Klatsker, and me Roman Mars. Ron Blumer, our expert on the history of Riren cleaning, wrote the book Wipeed, which is full of interesting details about toilet culture that we didn't get to include in this episode, will link to it on our website. We are a project of 91.7KLW in San Francisco and produced on Radio Row in beautiful, downtown,

Oakland, California. 99% invisible is a proud member of Radio Topia from PRX, a fiercely independent collective For more information, visit www.radiotopia.com for more information. You can find the show and join discussions about the show on Facebook. You can tweet me at RomanMars on the show at 99PI or on Instagram and write it to. But the drive to get you to listen to old episodes and share those episodes with your friends is still on. And the best place to start is at 99pi.org.