The great toilet paper shortage...

Given the terrible and worrying recent spread of the Covid 19 virus, there have been the rather humorous stories of people hoarding toilet roll, leaving empty shelves in the shops and supermarkets. I just wanted to share a couple of points with you that you might find interesting and even useful...

The first thing to point out is that whereas our paper manufacturing industry is now virtually non existent (back in the 19th and 20th centuries, Great Britain was one of the largest paper making nations) in the world of 'tissue and hygenic papers' we actually still have a decent amount of manufacturing capability in the UK. In fact about two thirds of domestic consumption in the UK is manufactured in the UK (according to the CPI) ...which is excellent news and means that we really, really won't run out.

However there is one thing that I want to warn you about, just in case you run out of toilet tissue. DO NOT use tissues, hand towel or kitchen roll in the toilet and then flush down the toilet. Why not...? Read below to find out.

Hand towel, kitchen towel and tissues are specially made to have what is called "wet strength" which means that chemicals are added in the manufacturing process which hold the fibres together when they get wet. The reason for this is that you don't want shredded wet tissue over your nose after you have just blown it or for hand towel to fall apart as you are drying your hands. Normal papers disintegrate when they get wet and the fibres will break apart in water. Toilet paper is specifically designed to efficiently break up in water and flush away down the pipes and disintegrate into fibres, however tissue papers and hand towels are specifically designed NOT to break up and hold together intact. The result is that flush these products down the toilet and you will get a blockage - so it's really not worth doing, after all, nobody wants to unblock drains.

So now you can amaze your friends down the pub or at dinner parties and explain why you shouldn't block toilets with tissues!

Posted by Justin Hobson 15.03.2020