People are fighting over it in grocery stores
all over North America.
Some are selling it to make a huge profit.
No, this isn't the scene of some
crazy shopping sale.
Instead, it's people buying toilet paper.
Seriously?
You guys are fighting over this?
Due to this mass consumption,
what if we ran out of toilet paper?
It's pretty easy to overlook
how much you might use toilet paper.
But people sure use a lot of it.
It's a $30 billion industry.
And 15 million trees are cut down each year
to make it.
It's no secret that
this stuff is everywhere.
So what would happen if we
suddenly got rid of it?
The most difficult part of this scenario
would probably be how certain people adapt
to not having toilet paper.
Approximately 4 billion people on Earth
wouldn't even notice.
That's because
nearly half of the world
doesn't use toilet paper at all.
After they're done doing their business,
they might clean themselves in a number of ways:
by using bidets,
washcloths,
or water and a bucket.
So we can rest easy,
knowing that a massive part of humanity
will be able to carry on with how they do number two.
The real problem would come
from how people in North America adapt.
They've had toilet paper since the 1800s.
And bidets
or other methods of wiping themselves
are largely foreign to them.
It's unlikely that they would have access to,
or adapt to these new methods overnight.
So naturally, they're probably going to use
whatever form of paper they might have.
Paper towels and tissue paper
would be the first option.
But once that runs out,
they'd probably start using magazines,
books, newspapers,
and whatever other forms of paper they might have.
And if they run out of all that,
they might gravitate towards
dishcloths and clothing items.
Obviously, magazines aren't meant for wiping your butt.
So if you wipe yourself with them,
there is a chance that you could cut yourself.
Y'know how much a paper cut stings?
Yeah, now imagine that on your butt.
Not very nice.
Not only would it be
unpleasant to sit down,
but these cuts could also lead to infections.
A single gram of feces
can contain 10 million viruses,
1 million bacteria,
and a whole other mess of things you don't want
lurking on your skin.
And if fecal matter happens to get into a
cut on your butt,
it could lead to some severe infections.
So if these were the only methods you used
to clean yourself,
things could get pretty ugly.
But your body wouldn't be the only
thing you'd have to worry about.
Flushing all these foreign objects down a toilet
would be terrible for the sewage system.
The reason we use toilet paper is that it
dissolves quickly.
Things like paper towels
and pages from your magazines
will hold their shape and will take much longer to dissolve.
They'll cause clogged pipes
and overflowing sewage systems.
Not only that, but these things called fatbergs will also start to pop up.
They're a congealed mass that's formed
from non-biodegradable solids.
If we stop using toilet paper
and don't adapt quickly,
you could expect lots of fatbergs to start taking over our sewers.
But if we did manage to adapt,
not having toilet paper could be a great thing.
Millions of trees are cut down to make toilet paper every year.
No toilet paper production
would mean our forests would
flourish more than ever before.
And not having toilet paper
really shouldn't be the end of the world.
Even having a toilet is something we should be grateful for.
Over 2 billion people
don't even have access to proper toilets.
So while we're overly concerned about how we're wiping our butts,
we should remember that some people don't have
toilets at all.
This, combined with being unable to clean themselves,
leads to disease and death.
So instead of panic buying all this toilet paper,
know that there are other alternatives,
and try your best to keep things in perspective.
Not having toilet paper definitely wouldn't be the end of the world.
But y'know what might be?
Flushing every toilet at the same time.
We'll leave that story for another WHAT IF.