Wiping your bum costs up to R1,30 per wipe, as toilet paper prices skyrocket

What can you never have too much of or use too little of? And, which household item sold out quicker than anyone could say Covid-19 in March 2020, when the world thought there may be a looming shortage of it? And lastly, what can feel like sandpaper on your derriere or as soft as a cotton bud on your privates?

We are, of course, talking about the humble loo roll!

It’s five hundred tiny perforated sheets rolled around a cardboard trunk, that keeps us somewhat civilized, along with its big brother, Thomas Crapper’s flushing toilet, where toilet paper eventually goes to die.

The history of the loo roll

Toilet paper as we know it is still a relatively new invention. It was available around a century ago after American inventor Joseph Gayetti, mostly credited as its inventor, first introduced it in 1857. He sold little parcels of paper squares in packets and named it his Medicated Paper, touted as plumbing hygiene’s best friend.  

The Scott Paper Company, also a Stateside business, popularised the roll-format and entered the market toward the end of the seventeenth century.

Before toilet paper, and still in use by some cultures today, water was seen as a cleaner alternative to more hygienic human exhausts. Leaves, sand and rags, fur and hands, even corn cobs have been used in various parts of the world to shine up after a poo. Bidets remain fashionable in some bathrooms today.

But, unlike toilet paper, none of the other remedies can double up as a tissue, to wipe up a spill when serviettes are unavailable and for toddlers, to wet and papier-mache ceilings and walls with wet papery blobs. Toilet paper is also unlikely to block your drain as often as rat fur or a bucket of river sand would.

How many squares must you use?

It’s an essential part of life, and with its dull duty often comes bizarre questions. Quora, the hovering spot online for everything question and sometimes, answers, often sees people wonder and contemplate on exactly how many squares of toilet paper to use for a specific purpose.

The rule of thumb, ‘more than a handful is wasted’ seems to apply equally to loo rolls as it does to teenage obsessions with bra size.

One answer should only be read after dinner. It was posted two years ago in response to the forever question about how many squares to wipe with:

“Just one sheet. Fold it in half. Tear a triangle out of the middle, set aside. Unfold sheet and put your finger through the hole. Wipe off finger with the sheet. Use triangle to clean under fingernail when finished.”

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Another commented: “It depends on the quality of the paper and what I am wiping. My mother taught me to wipe, fold the paper and wipe again. The directions did not include a square count; however, I am sure I often used too much. I remember causing numerous toilet overflows, which led my mother to review with me the correct way to use paper.”

The user then added:

“We did not have toilet (wet) wipes then. I am disgusted knowing I walked around with a dry-cleaned behind. I spent half of my life with major poop on my butt. I know this because I have wiped “clean” with paper, then used a wet, flushable wipe.

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It is surprising in the worst way. If you did not know that dry paper leaves poop, I am sorry I had to be the one to tell you. There is nothing you can do now: no catch-up wiping. Use two squares. Use one hundred. Your butt will not be clean either way.”

Single ply or two?

And armed with this wisdom and a wide variety of choice, shoppers can either poop in budget or wipe in luxury. There are primarily two kinds of toilet paper on the market, single ply and two ply.

The former, more crass and harder on the butt than the soft, gentle cuddle that a two-ply roll gives your plumbing. For the super indulgent crappers, there is three and four ply toilet paper. Some folks roll these out at dinner parties and on episodes of some set of desperate housewives who probably need a few squares to remove the nonsense in their dialogue, too.

The science of the bum wipe

Toilet paper is a science, too Cottonelle, a US-brand dissected the averages. Its website said that most people ablute around five times every day, but also assured readers that peeing or pooing four times daily is normal, too, as is visiting the water closet up to ten times. The company then goes on to say that on average, individuals use seven sheets per wipe amongst men and eight amongst women.

This all equates to thirty-five sheets of bog-roll a day, per person. That is about a toilet roll every four days, making it an average of eighty-five rolls of wiping every year.

The price of a clean bum

Bearing in mind average usage, and the price of a roll or two, and translating each wipe into an opportunity cost, it works out like this: Presently a no-name brand pack of 18 two ply rolls costs around R100.

Each roll contains an average of 350 sheets. So, in total, there are about 6 300 paper squares available, and at an average of seven used in a wipe, a pack of one and a half dozen two-ply’s delivers nine hundred bum wipes.

That is less than ten cents a shot.

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But, at R10 a roll of biodegradable two-ply bog rolls a clean bum becomes quite pricey. Suddenly, a 7-sheet exercise per wipe carries a price tag of thirty-five cents a wipe.

Single ply single rolls sport about five hundred sheets and, for a lower price of about R50 for six rolls in a pack, it works out to just above a cent per square and, when wiping with seven sheets, it works out to roundabout eight cents to the wipe.

Healthline said that after a bowel movement about two to three wipes should suffice. So, depending on which paper you choose, the price of a sanitised behind could cost you as much as R1.30 for a environmentally friendly sweep.