Fun Facts

Don't leave your toilet paper behind in the beautiful New Zealand wilderness!

A freedom camper in New Zealand left behind tell tale toilet paper when illegally going to the bathroom in the wilderness.  Freedom camping, camping outside of campgrounds with bathroom facilities, in New Zealand has been prohibited in certain areas because of a growing human waste and litter problem.

The camper denied that she had gone to the bathroom, but the toilet paper on the ground matched the roll of tissue hanging out the back of her van. An officer confronted the offending camper.

Thames Coromandel District Council spokesperson Craig Birkett told the Waikato Times, “The officer said, ‘You can’t really deny it now can you?’ And she said, `Well, I guess not’.”

While freedom camping is not prohibited everywhere in New Zealand, there are certain areas of restriction. All illegal campers staying overnight in prohibited locations now could be fined $200.

Moral of this story: Don’t leave your toilet paper behind! ToiletPaperWorld.com endorses the responsible disposal of toilet paper.

Last April, we posted about a group at St. Mark’s School in Massachusetts folding toilet paper 13 times. This past weekend, under Dr. James Tanton’s direction, the St. Mark’s students beat the world record with a stable 13 folds. They’re petitioned the Guinness Book of World Records to add a paper folding category, and of course to add them to it.

From the St. Mark’s website:

Utilizing the 825-foot long “infinite corridor” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the St. Mark’s contingent, led by Dr. James Tanton, Director of the St. Mark’s Institute of Mathematics, and SM computer science teacher Christopher Roche, folded more than ten miles of toilet paper 13 times, once and forever eclipsing a record set in 2002 by California high school senior Britney Gallivan.

Congratulations to Dr. James Tanton and his team!!

There seems to be no shortage of scandals involving toilet paper.

Three people from Florida are facing up to two decades in prison for their alleged involvement in a $1 million toilet paper scam. Employees from a septic tank company, FBK products, called elderly customers selling unnecessary products including toilet paper, detergent, and soap.

From the Miami Herald,

More than a dozen customers were told they needed special toilet paper to avoid ruining their septic tanks because the federal government changed regulations on toilet paper. The federal government does not regulate septic tank products.

So just what is this contraption pictured on the left, is it the next big item on everybody’s holiday wishlist?  The greatest thing since sliced bread?  A pinnacle of German engineering?  Probably not, but it does combine two of my favorite things: Twitter and toilet paper. 

This is the latest invention of a German man named Mario Lukas who entered the above contraption into a tech contest.  The mechanical parts inside of the wooden frame were taken from old cd drives, and the printer is reminiscent of one of the old dot matrix printers from the late 80′s or early 90′s.  The machine has network connectivity and is pointed at a twitter feed, which is then printed onto the toilet paper roll.

Watch the video for yourself below to see the nuts and bolts of it!

Sometimes people make very creative pieces of art out of simple materials.  Toilet paper art is no exception – from toilet paper dresses to other fantastic toilet paper art, people have done some remarkable things with toilet paper. 

 Even how you store your toilet paper can be art – all of you Space Invaders fans should appreciate this, I certainly did!

I wish I had the room in my bathroom to make an homage such as this to a great game, this really brings me back to all of the time I spent in front of the Atari as a kid.  I for one would like to see some more video-game-inspired toilet paper art.

For those of you not familiar, this is an older game that was on a system most kids today probably haven’t heard of, or you would have even had to go to an arcade and pump quarters into the machine to play it…. ah the good ol’ days.

Thanks and credit to Gotgame.com for this great toilet paper storage art image.

I recently came across this fabulous infographic proving the need for bulk toilet paper. As we have said before, toilet paper doesn’t expire and you can never have enough of it.

From the Adulting Blog by Kelly Brown

Blogger Kelly Brown on the Adulting Blog posted this graph recently with her take on buying in bulk:

Let’s look at a graph that illustrates toilet paper need: at every point between infancy and death, the answer to the question, ‘Do I need toilet paper?’ will always be ‘Yes.’

Just go ahead and buy in bulk.

That’s it folks, simple and sophisticated, with mathematical proof that buying toilet tissue in bulk is the best option. We have toilet paper for both household and commercial use available at ToiletPaperWorld.com. Buy a case of toilet paper for fast delivery in 2-3 days.

To learn more about Kelly Brown and why she is writing about being better at being an adult, visit her blog at http://adultingblog.com/

The Creator of Charmin’s ‘Don’t Squeeze the Charmin’ advertising campaign recently died at age 74. After a battle with Parkinson’s disease for five years, John Chervokas died Saturday of a stroke in Manhattan.

Chervokas said that seeing women testing fruit’s softness in supermarkets inspired him to write the creative advertising campaign. He saw that women touched produce and other items, testing for softness. Mr. Whipple’s character discouraged shoppers from squeezing the Charmin.

As a junior copywriter at Betnon & Bowles in 1964, he coined the slogan, “Don’t Squeeze the Charmin!” The advertising campaign featured television commercials with Mr. Whipple, played by actor Dick Wilson. With the catchy slogan and popular television commercial, Mr Whipple became one of TV’s best-known characters, and Charmin became the best-selling toilet paper by 1969. Mr. Whipple was even resurrected as a spokesperson for Charmin toilet paper, see the image to the left.

Before Mr. Whipple, came the Charmin Lady, which we featured a few weeks ago. Now, the Charmin advertising campaign is based on bears in the woods.

See some of the vintage Charmin commercials on the NPR website.

Thanks to Roadsidepictures for the image.

Debby, from Georgia,recently submitted this picture of a paper towel dispenser with the Charmin Lady on it, asking what type of folded paper towel would fit in. Paper towels? Yes, paper towels were once part of the Charmin family of products! P&G eventually discontinued all the other Charmin products, including napkins and facial tissue.

The Charmin Lady was the original icon for the Charmin brand. The silhouette of the woman’s head was from a cameo pin. I found this ad on the Thirsty in Suburbia blog from circa 1952, which still had the Charmin Lady on the packaging.

At the time, toilet paper was being marketed to women, enticing them with feminine advertising. By avoiding the topic of the actual use of toilet paper, the Charmin Lady ad campaign succeeded in a time when competitors were marketing toilet paper as a medicinal product. The Charmin branding eventually evolved to include babies, the well-known Mr. Whipple, and the Charmin bears.

We recommended that Debby use Signature C-Fold Hand Towels in the holder. Thanks for submitting your photo!

Readers, let us know if you have any questions or submissions! We love to hear from you!

I’m sure just about everyone knows what a bidet is, however I have never used one, and neither has anyone that I know.  Using toilet paper is simply ingrained in our society – we can’t picture using something else.  With all of the talk lately however about eco-friendly products and being more environmentally conscious, the bidet warrants a bit of discussion. 

I’ll be honest – the only experience I have had with a bidet is seeing one in the scene of the Crocodile Dundee movie, where he is in the hotel in New York trying to figure out what it is.  Personally, the thought of using one would make me cringe a bit, and I imagine the majority of Americans feel the same way.  However, in European, Asian, and Latin American countries where the bidet is common, they probably feel the same way about toilet paper.

Advantages of a bidet:

- Less irritating than toilet paper.

- More hygienic than toilet paper.

- Reduces toilet paper usage greatly:  America uses approximately 26 billion rolls of toilet paper per year – about 23.6 rolls per person.  Roughly 10 million trees have to be pulped to accommodate this much toilet paper.  Bidets being the norm would greatly reduce these numbers.  Even if everyone began using recycled toilet paper the amount of natural resources needed would be greatly reduced.

- Saves water:  You might think a bidet would cause more water consumption, but you likely won’t have to ever flush twice due to large amounts of toilet paper, and if bidets were used more they would cut down on the amount of water needed for the process of creating toilet paper itself.  Each year alone almost 470 billion gallons of water are used to create toilet paper.

-Save yourself money:  Depending on the size of your family (and the model of bidet you get) a bidet could pay for itself after about 1 year with the amount of money you would save by using substantially less toilet paper. 

Bidets certainly do have advantages.  What are your thoughts on them?  Post your opinion in the comments section!

Asker smiling for the camera on the left, while Angel is anxious to get back to work on the right

It’s that time of year where we get to bring our favorite four-legged friends into work and show our pooch compadres how much we care about them.  If you are lucky enough for your company to participate, having a dog around the workplace really brings camaraderie to the office that you just don’t have without them.  Of course, it’s always nice to have carpet cleaner and extra paper towel around just in case…  Our local canine celebrities, Asker and Angel pictured on the right, always bring a smile to everyone’s face here at ToiletPaperWorld. 

 Take Your Dog to Work Day was first held in the United States on June 24, 1999 and was created by Pet Sitters International.  Its purpose is to show what great companions dogs can make and to encourage adoption from local shelters, rescue groups, and humane societies.  Personally, I’ve always had a dog or two that came from the local humane society, and they made great pets. 

 In celebration of Take Your Dog to Work Day follow us on Twitter to see great pics of adorable doggies every hour today!