[NFB-Seniors] Interesting Facts - Nothing to do with blindness - butt...

[Robert Leslie Newman]

Facts about toilet paper

 

Note from Robert: Sometimes, when national news is weighing me down, a
little bit of toilet facts will lift me up! Enjoy the pick-me-up!

 

1. The first recorded use of toilet

paper was in 6th Century China .

 

2. By the 14th Century, the

Chinese government was mass-producing it.

 

3. Packaged toilet paper wasn't

sold in the United States until 1857.

 

4. Joseph Gayety, the man who

introduced packaged TP to the U.S. , had his name printed on every sheet.

 

5. Global toilet paper demand

uses nearly 30,000 trees every day.

 

6. That's 10 million trees a

year.

 

7. It wasn't until 1935 that a

manufacturer was able to promise Splinter-Free Toilet Paper.

 

8. Seven percent of Americans

admit to stealing rolls of toilet paper from hotels.

 

9. Americans use an average of

8.6 sheets of toilet paper per trip to the bathroom.

 

10. The average roll has 333

sheets.

 

11. Historically, what you use

to wipe depended on your income level.

 

12. In the Middle Ages, they

used something called a gompf stick, which was just an actual stick used to
scrape.

 

13. Wealthy Romans used wool

soaked in rose water, and French royalty used lace.

 

14. Other things that were used

before toilet paper include hay, corn cobs, sticks, stones, sand, moss,
hemp, wool, husks, fruit peels, ferns, sponges, seashells, knotted ropes,
and broken pottery (ouch!).

15. 70-75% of the world still

doesn't use toilet paper because it is too expensive or there is not
sufficient plumbing.

 

16. In many Western European

countries, bidets are seen as more effective and preferable to toilet paper.

 

17. Colored toilet paper was

popular in the U.S. until the 1940s.

 

18. The reason toilet paper

disintegrates so quickly when wet is that the fibers used to make it are
very short.

 

19. On the International Space

Station, they still use regular toilet paper, but it has to be sealed in
special containers and compressed.

 

20. During Desert Storm, the

U.S. Army used toilet paper to camouflage their tanks.

 

21. In 1973, Johnny Carson

caused a toilet paper shortage. He said as a joke that there was a shortage,
which there wasn't, until everyone believed him and ran out to buy up the
supply. It took three weeks for some stores to get more stock.

 

22. There is a contest sponsored

by Charmin to design and make wedding dresses out of toilet paper. The
winner gets $2,000.

 

23.. There was a toilet paper

museum in Wisconsin , The Madison Museum of Bathroom Tissue, but it closed
in 2000.

 

24. The museum once had over

3,000 rolls of TP from places all over the world, including The Guggenheim,
Ellis Island, and Graceland .

 

25. There is still a virtual

toilet paper museum called Nobody's Perfect.

 

26. In 1996, President Clinton

passed a Toilet Paper Tax of 6 cents per roll which is still in effect
today.

 

27. The Pentagon uses, on

average, 666 rolls of toilet paper per day.

 

28. The most expensive toilet

paper in the world is the Portuguese brand, Renova.

 

29. Renova is three-ply,

perfumed, costs $3 per roll, and comes in several colors including black,
red, blue, and green.

 

30. The CEO of Renova came up

with the idea for black toilet paper while he was at a Cirque du Soleil
show.

 

31. Beyonce uses only red Renova

toilet paper.

 

32. Kris Jenner uses only the

black Renova toilet paper.

 

33. If you hang your toilet

paper so you can pull it from the bottom, you're considered more intelligent
than someone who pulls it from the top. (Wonder how this was

determined?)

 

34. Koji Suzuki, a Japanese

horror novelist best known for writing The Ring, had an entire novel printed
on a single roll of toilet paper.

35. The novel takes place in a

public bathroom, and the entire story runs approximately three feet long.

 

36. When asked what necessity

they would bring to a desert island, 49% of people said toilet paper before
food.