What about toilet paper?

We're off to a great start this week...

Our ancestors cleaned up with a variety of organic materials, ceramic, moss, other soft or dry plants, wooden sticks, sponges, and fabrics. Take a look at these historical wipes:

Ceramic piece used in ancient Greece:

Photo Solent News

Sponge and stick used in ancient Rome:

Romans used a sponge on a stick called the tersorium. They shared it in public latrines. Ew, but it happened. This tool might have contributed to the spread of disease in Roman society.

The Viking and Anglo-Saxon used moss:

Photo: Big Think

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese were the first to use paper to wipe. Even at a large scale, and very early on. By the 14th century, they were rolling and rolling up paper wipes.

10 million packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets of toilet paper were manufactured every year in the Zhejiang province.

Dried cobs were used in early American society. Photo: Plant Paper

These are but a few examples throughout history. The modern version of our soft toilet paper was only developed in the US in the early 1990s with the rise of industrialization — it’s a somewhat recent invention.

The comfort of industrialized toilet paper is underrated. It’s unknown to most of us how much it takes to supply all our glorious toilet paper — tons!

It requires lots of machinery, water, energy, and trees… It’s pretty impressive. Here’s a video of how industrial toilet paper is made.

Image: Factora

Millions of trees are cut down annually to meet the demand for toilet paper, with the US requiring approximately 31.1 million trees each year. That’s a lot of life… but who would dare give up toilet paper?