toilet paper

Background

Most of us can't imagine living without toilet paper. The average American uses over 100 single rolls—about 21,000 sheets—each year. It's used not only for bathroom hygiene, but for nose care, wiping up spills, removing makeup, and small bathroom cleaning chores. Manufacturers estimate that an average single roll lasts five days.

Toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, and facial tissues are sanitary papers, personal products that need to be clean and hygenic. They're made from various proportions of bleached kraft pulps with relatively little refining of the stock, rendering them soft, bulky, and absorbent. Sanitary papers are further distinguished from other papers in that they are creped, a process in which the paper is dried on a cylinder then scraped off with a metal blade, slightly crimping it. This softens the paper but makes it fairly weak, allowing it to disintegrate in water.

Toilet paper can be one-or two-ply, meaning that it's either a single sheet or two sheets placed back-to-back to make it builder and more absorbent. Color, scents, and embossing may also be added, but fragrances sometimes cause problems for consumers who are allergic to perfumes. The biggest difference between toilet papers is the distinction between virgin paper products, which are formed directly from chipped wood, and those made from recycled paper. Most toilet paper, however, whether virgin or recycled, is wrapped around recycled cardboard cylinders.

History

Before paper was widely available, a variety of materials were employed. The Romans used an L-shaped stick (like a hockey stick) made of wood or precious metal; at public toilets people used sponges on sticks that were kept in saltwater between uses. In arid climates, sand, powdered brick, or earth was used. Until the late nineteenth century, Muslims were advised to use three stones to clean up. One favorite tool was a mussel shell, used for centuries. Until the early twentieth century, corn cobs were used.

In the late fifteenth century, when paper became widely available, it began to replace other traditional materials. Sometimes old correspondence was pressed into service, as were pages from old books, magazines, newspapers, and catalogs. People also used old paper bags, envelopes, and other bits of scrap paper, which were cut into pieces and threaded onto a string that was kept in the privy.

Toilet paper is a fairly modern invention, making its debut around 1880 when it was developed by the British Perforated Paper Company. Made of a coarser paper than its modern incarnation, it was sold in boxes of individual squares. In America, the Scott Paper Company made its Waldorf brand toilet paper in rolls as early as 1890. The first rolls were not perforated, and lavatory dispensers had serrated teeth to cut the paper as needed. It was a nearly "unmentionable" product for years, and consumers were often embarrassed to ask for it by name or even be seen buying it. Timid shoppers simply asked for "Two, please," and the clerk presumably knew what they wanted. To keep things discreet, toilet paper was packaged and sold in brown paper wrappers.

During the 120 years since its introduction, toilet paper has changed little, although it's now perforated, and may be scented, embossed, or colored. Recently, toilet paper manufacturers increased the number of sheets on a roll, allowing consumers to replace the roll less frequently.

Raw Materials

Toilet paper is generally made from new or "virgin" paper, using a combination of softwood and hardwood trees. Softwood trees such as Southern pines and Douglas firs have long fibers that wrap around each other; this gives paper strength. Hardwood trees like gum, maple and oak have shorter fibers that make a softer paper. Toilet paper is generally a combination of approximately 70% hardwood and 30% softwood.

Other materials used in manufacture include water, chemicals for breaking down the trees into usable fiber, and bleaches. Companies that make paper from recycled products use oxygen, ozone, sodium hydroxide, or peroxide to whiten the paper. Virgin-paper manufacturers, however, often use chlorine-based bleaches (chlorine dioxide), which have been identified as a threat to the environment.

The Manufacturing Process

1. Trees arive at the mill and are debarked, a process that removes the tree's outer layer while leaving as much wood on the tree as possible.
2. The debarked logs are chipped into a uniform size approximately 1 in x 1/4 in. These small pieces make it easier to pulp the wood.
3. The batch of wood chips—about 50 tons—is then mixed with 10,000 gallons of cooking chemicals; the resultant slurry is sent to a 60-ft (18.3-m)-tall pressure cooker called a digester.
4. During the cooking, which can last up to three hours, much of the moisture in the wood is evaporated (wood chips contain about 50% moisture). The mixture is reduced to about 25 tons of cellulose fibers, lignin (which binds the wood fibers together) and other substances. Out of this, about 15 tons of usable fiber, called pulp, result from each cooked batch.
5. The pulp goes through a multistage washer system that removes most of the lignin and the cooking chemicals. This fluid, called black liquor, is separated from the pulp, which goes on to the next stage of production.
6. The washed pulp is sent to the bleach plant where a multistage chemical process removes color from the fiber. Residual lignin, the adhesive that binds fibers together, will yellow paper over time and must be bleached to make paper white.
7. The pulp is mixed with water again to produce paper stock, a mixture that is 99.5% water and 0.5% fiber. The paper stock is sprayed between moving mesh screens, which allow much of the water to drain. This produces an 18-ft (5.5-m) wide sheet of matted fiber at a rate of up to 6,500 ft (1981 m) per minute.
8. The mat is then transferred to a huge heated cylinder called a Yankee Dryer that presses and dries the paper to a final moisture content of about 5%.
9. Next, the paper is creped, a process that makes it very soft and gives it a slightly wrinkled look. During creping, the paper is scraped off the Yankee Dryer with a metal blade. This makes the sheets somewhat flexible but lowers their strength and thickness so that they virtually disintegrate when wet. The paper, which is produced at speeds over a mile a minute, is then wound on jumbo reels that can weigh as much as five tons.
10. The paper is then loaded onto converting machines that unwind, slit, and rewind it onto long thin cardboard tubing, making a paper log. The paper logs are then cut into rolls and wrapped packages.

Recycled toilet paper

Toilet tissue made from recycled paper is made from both colored and white stock, with staples and pins removed. The paper goes into a huge vat called a pulper that combines it with hot water and detergents to turn it into a liquid slurry. The recycled pulp then goes through a series of screens and rinses to remove paper coatings and inks. The pulp is whitened somewhat and sanitized with oxygen-based products like peroxide. It then goes through steps 7 through 10 like virgin paper products, producing a cheaper, less-white paper.

Quality Control

Paper companies often maintain their own tree stands in order to ensure the quality of the paper they manufacture. The chemicals used in the pulping process are also carefully tested and monitored. Temperatures at which a slurry is cooked is ensured, too, by checking gauges, machinery, and processes. Completed paper may be tested for a variety of qualities, including stretch, opacity, moisture content, smoothness, and color.

Byproducts/Waste

The first waste product produced in the papermaking process, the bark removed from tree trunks, burns easily and is used to help power the paper mills. In addition, black liquor, the fluid removed from the pulp after cooking, is further evaporated to a thick combustible liquid that is also used to power the mill. This reduction process, in turn, yields a byproduct called tall oil that is widely used many household products. About 95% of the cooking chemicals are recovered and reused.

But other problems associated with the industry are less easily solved. The production of virgin toilet paper has spawned two current controversies: the destruction of trees, and the use of chlorine dioxide to bleach the paper. While virgin paper processing does necessitate the destruction of trees, they are a readily renewable resource and paper companies maintain large forests to feed their supply. Despite this, some activists have proposed that toilet paper be manufactured only from recycled products and suggest that consumers boycott toilet paper made of new materials.

These activists object to new paper processing because it often uses chlorine bleaching, which produces dioxins, a family of chemicals considered environmental hazards, as a byproduct. Paper and pulp mills are the primary producers of dioxins, and manufacturers must carefully assess their effluvia to counteract the emission of dioxins. Increasingly, virgin paper makers use alternative bleaching methods that substitute oxygen, peroxide, and sodium hydroxide for chlorine. Some simply reduce the amount of chlorine used in the process. Others experiment with cooking the wood chips longer, removing more lignin earlier in the process, which requires less bleach. Better pulp washing also removes more lignin, and reduces the amount of bleach needed for whitening.

Where to Learn More

Books

Ierley, Merritt. The Comforts of Home. New York: Clarkson Potter, 1999.

Muir, Frank. An Irreverant and Almost Complete Social History of the Bathroom. New York: Stein and Day Publishers, 1983.

Other

Charmin Bathroom Tissue. http://www.charmin.com (January 2001).

Georgia Pacific. Student Resources. http://www.gp.com/resourcecenter/process.html (January 2001).

Marcal Paper Products. http://www.marcalpaper.com (January 2001).

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: a soft thin absorbent paper for use in toilets
  Synonyms: toilet tissue, bathroom tissue

For other uses, see Toilet paper (disambiguation).

The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (August 2009)

A roll of toilet paper.

Toilet paper is a soft paper product (tissue paper) used to maintain personal hygiene after human defecation or urination. It differs in composition somewhat from facial tissue, and is designed to decompose in septic tanks, whereas some other bathroom and facial tissues do not. Most septic tank manufacturers advise against using paper products that are non-septic tank safe. Different names and slang terms are used for toilet paper in countries around the world, including "loo roll/paper," "toilet roll," "dunny roll/paper," "bathroom/toilet tissue," "TP" or just "tissue."

Contents 1 History 2 Modern toilet paper 3 Environmental considerations 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 7 External links

History

Wooden toilet paper from the Nara period (710 to 784) in Japan. The modern rolls in the background are for size comparison

Although paper had been known as a wrapping and padding material in China since the 2nd century BC,^[1] the first use of toilet paper in human history dates back to the 6th century AD, in early medieval China.^[2] In 589 AD the scholar-official Yan Zhitui (531–591) wrote about the use of toilet paper:

"Paper on which there are quotations or commentaries from Five Classics or the names of sages, I dare not use for toilet purposes".^[2]

During the later Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD) a Muslim traveler to China in the year 851 AD remarked:

"They (the Chinese) are not careful about cleanliness, and they do not wash themselves with water when they have done their necessities; but they only wipe themselves with paper."^[2]

During the early 14th century (Yuan Dynasty) it was recorded that in modern-day Zhejiang province alone there was an annual manufacturing of toilet paper amounting in ten million packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets of toilet paper each.^[2] During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 AD), it was recorded in 1393 that 720,000 sheets of toilet paper (two by three feet in size) were produced for the general use of the Imperial court at the capital of Nanjing.^[2] From the records of the Imperial Bureau of Supplies (Bao Chao Si) of that same year, it was also recorded that for Emperor Hongwu's imperial family alone, there were 15,000 sheets of special soft-fabric toilet paper made, and each sheet of toilet paper was even perfumed.^[2]

Elsewhere, wealthy people wiped themselves with wool, lace or hemp, while less wealthy people used their hand when defecating into rivers, or cleaned themselves with various materials such as rags, wood shavings, leaves, grass, hay, stone, sand, moss, water, snow, maize, ferns, may apple plant husks, fruit skins, or seashells, and corn cobs, depending upon the country and weather conditions or social customs. In Ancient Rome, a sponge on a stick was commonly used, and, after usage, placed back in a bucket of saltwater.

The 16th century French satirical writer François Rabelais, in Chapter XIII of Book 1 of his novel-sequence Gargantua and Pantagruel, has his character Gargantua investigate a great number of ways of cleansing oneself after defecating. Gargantua dismisses the use of paper as ineffective, rhyming that: "Who his foul tail with paper wipes, Shall at his ballocks leave some chips." (Sir Thomas Urquhart's 1653 English translation). He concludes that "the neck of a goose, that is well downed" provides an optimum cleansing medium.^[3]

In many parts of the world, especially where toilet paper or the necessary plumbing for disposal may be unavailable or unaffordable, toilet paper is not used. Cleansing is then performed with other methods or materials, such as water, for example using a bidet, rags, sand, leaves (including seaweed), corn cobs, animal furs, sticks or hands.

A print by William Hogarth entitled A Just View of the British Stage from 1724 depicting Robert Wilks, Colley Cibber, and Barton Booth rehearsing a pantomime play with puppets enacting a prison break down a privy. The "play" is composed of nothing but special effects, and the scripts for Hamlet, inter al., are toilet paper.

Modern toilet paper

Joseph Gayetty is widely credited with being the inventor of modern commercially available toilet paper in the United States. Gayetty's paper, first introduced in 1857, was available as late as the 1920s. Gayetty's Medicated Paper was sold in packages of flat sheets, watermarked with the inventor's name. [Original advertisements] for the product used the tagline "The greatest necessity of the age! Gayetty's medicated paper for the water-closet."

Seth Wheeler of Albany, New York, obtained the earliest United States patents for toilet paper and dispensers, the types of which eventually were in common usage in that country.^[4]

The advantages of toilet paper are that it is easy and intuitive to use, fairly absorbent, and it can be flushed in most countries where toilet paper is common. Most modern sewage systems, including septic tanks, can accept toilet paper along with human excreta.

Toilet paper is available in several types of paper, a variety of colors, decorations, and textures and may be moistened or perfumed.

Toilet paper products vary immensely in the technical factors that distinguish them: sizes, weights, roughness, softness, chemical residues, "finger-breakthrough" resistance, water-absorption, etc. The larger companies have very detailed, scientific market surveys to determine which marketing sectors require/demand which of the many technical qualities. Modern toilet paper may have a light coating of aloe or lotion or wax worked into the paper to reduce roughness. Quality is usually determined by the number of plies (stacked sheets), coarseness, and durability. Low grade institutional toilet paper is typically of the lowest grade of paper, has only one or two plies, is very coarse and sometimes has small amounts of unbleached/unpulped paper embedded in it. Mid-grade two ply is somewhat textured to provide some softness, and is somewhat durable. Premium toilet paper may have lotion and wax, and has two to four plies made of very finely pulped paper.

Two-ply toilet paper is the standard in many countries, although one-ply is often available and marketed as a budget option, it may also be more appropriate for use in toilets on boats and in camper-vans. Toilet paper, especially if it is marketed as "luxury", may be quilted or rippled (embossed), perfumed, colored or patterned, medicated (with anti-bacterial chemicals), treated with aloe, etc. Many novelty designs are also available on toilet paper, from cute cartoon animals to pictures of disfavored political celebrities to pictures of dollar bills. Women who are prone to vaginal Candidiasis yeast infections are advised by some medical experts to use white, unperfumed toilet paper.

Moist toilet paper was first introduced in the United Kingdom by Andrex in the 1990s, and in the United States by Kimberly-Clark in 2001. (Bidets are rare in those countries.) It is designed to clean better than dry toilet paper after defecation, and may be useful for women during menstruation.

The manufacture of toilet paper is a large industry. Twenty-six billion rolls of toilet paper, worth about US$2.4 billion, are sold yearly in America alone. Americans use an average of 23.6 rolls per capita a year.^[5]

Environmental considerations

Environmentally friendly toilet paper may also be unbleached.

As of 2009, between 25% and 50% of the toilet paper used in the United States comes from tree farms in the U.S. and South America, with most of the rest coming from second growth forests, and only a small percentage coming from virgin forests.^[5]

According to a news report by the HK Star Daily in 2004, 37.5% of toilet paper tested from Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces showed high levels of bacteria commonly found in human waste. A manager from one of the agencies involved in testing, Guangdong Consumer Associates, blamed "unsanitary raw materials used in production" for the high bacteria counts. Chinese hospital experts have warned that use of contaminated toilet paper can result in skin and gynecological infections.^[6][7][8]

See also

• Feces
• Handle-o-Meter
• Hygiene
• Paper
• Toilet
• Toilet paper holder

Notes

1. ^ Needham, Volume 5, Part 1, 122.
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Needham, Volume 5, Part 1, 123.
3. ^ François Rabelais (20 April 2007). "Gargantua and Pantagruel". The University of Adelaide, Australia: eBooks@Adelaide. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/r/rabelais/francois/r11g/part17.html. Retrieved 25 September 2009. 
4. ^ The first of note is for the idea of perforating commercial papers (25 July 1871, #117355), the application for which includes an illustration of a perforated roll of paper. On 13 February 1883 he was granted patent #272369, which presented a roll of perforated wrapping or toilet paper supported in the center with a tube. Wheeler also had patents for mounted brackets that held the rolls. See also Joseph Nathan Kane, "Famous First Facts: A Record of First Happenings, Discoveries and Inventions in the United States" (H. W. Wilson: 1964), p. 434; Harper's Magazine, vol. 184, 1941-1942 (Harper's Magazine Co.:1941), p. 181; Jules Heller, "Paper Making" (Watson-Guptill:1978), p. 193.
5. ^ ^{a b} "Mr. Whipple Left It Out: Soft Is Rough on Forests" by Leslie Kaufman, The New York Times, Feb. 25, 2009; for the per capita figure only. Retrieved 2-26-09.
6. ^ "Unsanitary Chinese Toilet Paper Linked to Health Problems" (in English). EpochTimes. 01-29-2004. http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/4-1-29/19048.html. Retrieved 10-25-2009. 
7. ^ (pdf) Minutes of the 28th Meeting of the University Steering Committee on Environment, 28, 01-17-08, pp. 4-5, http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/cce/extra/minutes/USCE_28th%20Min_Confirmed.pdf, retrieved 10-25-2009 
8. ^ Consumer Council in Hainan Province (08-16-04). "Wrinkled Tissue Paper Product Quality Checks Pass Rate of 65.4%" (in Chinese). Press release. http://www.hn315.net.cn/news/CheckAnn_info.asp?ArticleID=733. Retrieved 10-25-09. 

• De Beaumont, Sally; Amoret Tanner, Maurice Rickards (2000). Encyclopedia of Ephemera. UK: Routledge. pp. 190–191. ISBN 0415926483. 

References

• Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1, Paper and Printing. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Toilet paper

• Answers.com Information
• The Whole World Toilet Paper Museum
• The Toilet Paper Problem, Donald E. Knuth, The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 91, No. 8 (Oct., 1984), pp. 465-470

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