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Toilet paper is a tissue paper product primarily used for the cleaning of the anus to remove fecal material after defecation or to remove remaining droplets of urine from the genitals after urination, and acts as a layer of protection for the hands during this process. It is typically sold as a long strip of perforated paper wrapped around a paperboard core, to be stored in a dispenser adjacent to a toilet. Most modern toilet paper in the developed world is designed to decompose in septic tanks, whereas some other bathroom and facial tissues are not. Toilet paper can be one-, two- or three-ply, or even thicker, meaning that it is either a single sheet or multiple sheets placed back-to-back to make it thicker, softer, stronger and more absorbent.

The use of paper for such hygiene purposes has been recorded in China in the 6th century AD, with specifically manufactured toilet paper being mass-produced in the 14th century. Modern commercial toilet paper originated in the 19th century, with a patent for roll-based dispensers being made in 1883.

Different names, euphemisms and slang terms are used for toilet paper in countries around the world, including "bumf," "bum wad," "loo roll/paper," "bog roll," "toilet roll," "dunny roll/paper," "bathroom/toilet tissue," "TP," "arsewipe," "shit tickets" (used informally by soldiers of the United States Army), and also simply "tissue."

History

Although paper had been known as a wrapping and padding material in China since the 2nd century BC, the first documented use of toilet paper in human history dates back to the 6th century AD, in early medieval China. 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 the Five Classics or the names of sages, I dare not use for toilet purposes".

During the later Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD), an Arab traveller to China in the year 851 AD remarked:

"...they do not wash themselves with water when they have done their necessities; but they only wipe themselves with paper."

During the early 14th century, 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. During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 AD), it was recorded in 1393 that an annual supply of 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. From the records of the Imperial Bureau of Supplies 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.

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, many plant husks, fruit skins, or seashells, and corncobs, depending upon the country and weather conditions or social customs. In Ancient Rome, a sponge on a stick was commonly used, and, after use, placed back in a pail of vinegar. Several talmudic sources indicating ancient Jewish practice refer to the use of small pebbles, often carried in a special bag, and also to the use of dry grass and of the smooth edges of broken pottery jugs (e.g., Shabbat 81a, 82a, Yevamot 59b). These are all cited in the classic Biblical and Talmudic Medicine by the German physician Julius Preuss (Eng. trans. Sanhedrin Press, 1978).

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.

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. Also, in many parts of the world such as India, people consider using water a much cleaner and more sanitary practice than using paper. Cleansing is then performed with other methods or materials, such as water, for example using a bidet, a lota, rags, sand, leaves (including seaweed), corn cobs, animal furs, sticks or hands; afterwards, hands are washed with soap.

As a commodity

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 use in that country, in 1883.

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 (in lieu of bidets which 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.

More than seven billion rolls of toilet paper are sold yearly in the U.S. alone. Americans use an average of 23.6 rolls per capita per year.

Description

Toilet paper is available in several types of paper, a variety of patterns, decorations, and textures, and it may be moistened or perfumed, although fragrances sometimes cause problems for users who are allergic to perfumes. The average measures of a modern roll of toilet paper is ~10 cm (3 15/16 in.) wide, ø 12 cm (4 23/32 in.) and weighs about 227 grams (8 oz.). An alternative method of packing the sheets uses interleaved sheets in boxes, or in bulk for use in dispensers. 'Hard' single ply paper has been used as well as soft multi-ply.

Size

Manufactured toilet paper sheet in the United States was sized 4 1/2" x 4 1/2". Since 1999 the size of a sheet has been shrinking; Kimberly-Clark reduced the length of a sheet to 4.1". Scott, in 2006, reduced the length of their product to 3.7". The width of sheets was later reduced giving a general sheet size of 3.7" long and 4.1" wide. Larger sizes remain available. This variability in size has resulted in some issues with toilet paper dispensers.

Materials

Toilet paper products vary greatly in the distinguishing technical factors, such as size, weight, 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 or 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 contains small amounts of embedded unbleached/unpulped paper. Mid-grade two ply is somewhat textured to provide some softness and is somewhat stronger. Premium toilet paper may have lotion and wax and has two to four plies of very finely pulped paper. If it is marketed as "luxury", it may be quilted or rippled (embossed), perfumed, colored or patterned, medicated (with anti-bacterial chemicals), or treated with aloe or other perfumes.

In order to advance decomposition of the paper in septic tanks or drainage, the paper used has shorter fibres than facial tissue or writing paper. The manufacturer tries to reach an optimal balance between rapid decomposition (which requires shorter fibres) and sturdiness (which requires longer fibres).

A German quip says that the toilet paper of Nazi Germany was so rough and scratchy that it was almost unusable, so many people used old issues of the Völkischer Beobachter instead, because the paper was softer.

Color and design

Colored toilet paper in colors such as pink, lavender, light blue, light green, purple, green, and light yellow (so that one could choose a color of toilet paper that matched or complemented the color of one's bathroom) was commonly sold in the United States from the 1960s. Up until 2004, Scott was one of the last remaining U.S. manufacturers to still produce toilet paper in beige, blue, and pink. However, the company has since cut production of colored paper altogether.

Today, in the United States, plain unpatterned colored toilet paper has been mostly replaced by patterned toilet paper, normally white, with embossed decorative patterns or designs in various colors and different sizes depending on the brand. Colored toilet paper remains commonly available in some European countries.

An unintended problem with the design of the laminated construction of the sheets in a roll, is that on occasion whilst un-rolling separation occurs between laminations, rather than at the intended interface. Perforations then becomes misaligned and sheets cannot be torn off cleanly. The problem is resolved by careful un-winding of one or more laminations until the perforations re-align.

Installation

Dispensers

A toilet roll holder, also known as a toilet paper dispenser, is an item that holds a roll of toilet paper. There are at least seven types of holders:

1. A horizontal piece of wire mounted on a hinge, hanging from a door or wall.
2. A horizontal axle recessed in the wall.
3. A vertical axle recessed in the wall
4. A horizontal axle mounted on a freestanding frame.
5. A freestanding vertical pole on a base.
6. A wall mounted dispensing unit, usually containing more than one roll. This is used in the commercial / away from home marketplace.
7. A wall mounted dispensing unit with tissue interfolded in a "S" type leave so the user can extract the tissue one sheet at a time.

Orientation

There are two choices of orientation when using a holder with a horizontal axle parallel to the wall: the toilet paper may hang over or under the roll. The choice is largely a matter of personal preference, dictated by habit. In surveys of American consumers and of bath and kitchen specialists, 6070% of respondents prefer over.

Decoration

Toilegami refers to toilet paper origami. Like table napkins, some fancy Japanese hotels fold the first squares of toilet paper on its dispenser to be presented in a fashionable way.

Recreational use

Toilet paper has been the primary tool in an act known as "TP-ing" (pronounced Teepeeing). TP-ing, or "toilet papering", is often favored by adolescents and teenagers and is the act of throwing rolls of toilet paper over cars, trees, houses and gardens, causing the toilet paper to unfurl and cover the property, creating an inconvenient mess.

Another popular activity is called "spitballing" or "wet TP-ing". This involves wadding up a handful of toilet paper, soaking it in water or any other liquid and throwing it at a target, usually the ceiling. The wad of toilet paper is usually adhesive due to its moist state, which causes it to stick to the target for maximum inconvenience.

Mechanics

This section needs expansion. You can help by making an edit requestadding to it . (July 2010)

Alexander Balankin and coauthors have studied the behavior of toilet paper under tensile stress and during wetting and burning.

Toilet paper has been used in physics education to demonstrate the concepts of torque, moment of inertia, and angular momentum; and the conservation of momentum and energy.

Usage

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Environmental considerations

One tree produces about 100 pounds (45 kg) of toilet paper and about 83 million rolls are produced per day. Global toilet paper production consumes 27,000 trees daily.

More than seven billion rolls of toilet paper are sold yearly in America alone. Americans use an average of 23.6 rolls per capita a year. The average American uses 50 pounds (23 kg) of tissue paper per year which is 50% more than the average of other Western countries or Japan. The higher use in the United States may be explained by the fact that other countries people use bidets or spray hoses to clean themselves. Millions of trees are harvested in North and South America leaving ecological footprint concerns. Citizens of many western countries sometimes use toilet paper for industrial purposes such as oil filters, which may distort the use statistics.

As of 2009, between 22% and 48% 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.

See also

Template:Misplaced Pages books

• Anal cleansing, or "wiping"
• Handle-o-Meter
• Toilet paper in the United States
• Toilet paper orientation
• Minimello- a Swedish talent show for toilet rolls

Notes

1. ^ Needham, Volume 5, Part 1, 123.
2. Needham, Volume 5, Part 1, 122.
3. François Rabelais (20 April 2007). "Gargantua and Pantagruel". The University of Adelaide, Australia: eBooks@Adelaide. Retrieved 13 November 2011.
4. Sheri Trusty (21 February 2012). "Teen takes mission trip to India". Fremont, Ohio: The News-Messenger. Retrieved 5 March 2012.  'In most of India, they don't use toilet paper. They use water and their left hands,' Ollervides said. 'That's what the left hand is for.'  {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
5. 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, volume. Q, 1941-1943 (Harper's Magazine Co.:1941), p. 181; Jules Heller, "Paper Making" (Watson-Guptill:1978), p. 193.
6. ^ "Mr. Whipple Left It Out: Soft Is Rough on Forests" by Leslie Kaufman, The New York Times, 25 February 2009, Retrieved 2-26-09.
7. ^ "Toilet paper fun facts". ToiletPaperHistory.com.
8. http://blog.toiletpaperworld.com/is-my-toilet-paper-shrinking/
9. http://www.phlmetropolis.com/2011/03/the-incredible-shrinking-toilet-paper.php
10. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/minor-british-institutions-izal-toilet-paper-1727294.html
11. Read, Anthony and Fisher, David The Fall of Berlin London: Pimlico, 1993.
12. "Toilet Paper Origami". Origami Resource Center.
13. http://articles.dailypilot.com/2002-09-07/news/export33250_1_tp-trees-bandits
14. Balankin, Susarrey Huerta & Bravo 2001.
15. Balankin et al. 2002.
16. Balankin & Matamoros 2002.
17. Harkay 2006.
18. Goodwin 1985.
19. Walker 1975.
20. Ehrlich 1997.
21. "Toilet paper wipes out 27,000 trees a day - National Geographic's Green Guide". Blogs.nationalgeographic.com. 16 April 2010. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
22. "Soft Tissue Paper is Hard on the Environment". Simple Ecology. 22 August 2009.
23. "Euro-style Personal Hygiene With the Bidet". hgtv.com. 27 February 2012.
24. Lindsey (26 February 2009). "Destroying forests to make toilet paper is "worse than driving Hummers"". Green Peace.
25. "Toilet paper Oil Filters". Frantzoil.com. 1 January 1970. Retrieved 26 February 2012.

References

• Balankin, Alexander S.; Matamoros, Daniel Morales (2002), "Some new features of interface roughness dynamics in paper wetting, burning and rupturing experiments", in Miroslav Michal Novak (ed.), Emergent Nature: Patterns, Growth and Scaling in the Sciences (PDF), pp. 345–356, doi:10.1142/9789812777720_0031, retrieved 27 July 2010
• Balankin, Alexander S.; Susarrey Huerta, Orlando; Bravo, Armando (27 November 2001), "Self-affine nature of the stress-strain behavior of thin fiber networks" (PDF), Phys. Rev. E, 64 (6), American Physical Society, Bibcode:2001PhRvE..64f6131B, doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.64.066131, retrieved 27 July 2010
• Balankin, Alexander S.; Susarrey Huerta, Orlando; Urriolagoitia Calderón, Guillermo; Hernández, Luis H. (20 May 2002), "Self-affine nature of the stress-strain behavior of an elastic fractal network" (PDF), Physics Letters A, 297 (5–6), Elsevier: 376–386, Bibcode:2002PhLA..297..376B, doi:10.1016/S0375-9601(02)00427-9, retrieved 27 July 2010
• Ehrlich, Robert (1997), "5.9 Dropping two rolls of toilet paper", Why Toast Lands Jelly-Side Down: Zen and the Art of Physics Demonstrations, Princeton University Press, pp. 97–98, ISBN 0-691-02891-5
• Goodwin, Peter (1985), Physics can be fun: a sourcebook of practical problems, J. Weston Walch, pp. 64–69, ISBN 978-0-8251-0418-3
• Harkay, J. Russell (2006), "Roll Out: Toilet Paper Physics", Phenomenal Physics: A Guided Inquiry Approach (3rd ed.), Lulu.com, pp. 135–140, ISBN 978-1-4116-8882-7
• Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1, Paper and Printing. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
• Walker, Jearl (1975), The Flying Circus of Physics: With Answers (1st ed.), Wiley, pp. 32, 235, ISBN 978-0-471-76273-7

Further reading

• De Beaumont, Sally (2000), Encyclopedia of Ephemera, UK: Routledge, pp. 190–191, ISBN 0-415-92648-3 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |origmonth= and |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Knuth, Donald E. (October 1984), "The Toilet Paper Problem", The American Mathematical Monthly, 91 (8): 465–470, doi:10.2307/2322567, JSTOR 2322567
• Richard Smyth (2012). Bum Fodder: An Absorbing History of Toilet Paper. Souvenir Press Limited. ISBN 978-0-285-64120-4.

External links

• The Whole World Toilet Paper Museum

• Use dmy dates from January 2011
• Paper products
• Hygiene
• Toilets
• Toilet paper
• Domestic implements
• Chinese inventions
• Sanitation