Crisis in the cubicle — Technology meets necessity

Another in our Life in our little town of Summerland series — Extracted from The corporate quest to make better toilet paper — The Washington Post April 10, 2025 — Author Rachel Kurzius

Last Friday, prior to my therapeutic swim class I made a visit to my favourite cubicle in the men’s washroom. My necessary duties completed I turned to the toilet paper dispenser only to discover that the paper holder was jammed. This was not good. I was already late for my class. A cursory inspection showed that the oversize paper roll was too large for the container hence the jam.

Working quickly and carefully I pushed and pulled in different directions, applying different amounts of force working at various angles, eventually freeing enough paper to do what needed to be done, leaving a pile of clean shredded toilet paper on the floor.

This anxious cubic event got me thinking about toilet paper and TP dispenser engineering. (Sounds geeky I know, but it’s important; trust me on this.) Lo and behold, and without any previous investigation, an  article by Rachel Kurzius appeared in my social media feed a few hours later. It seems I am not alone in wondering about toilet paper dispensation, its history, use, technology, and continuing product innovation. Something we all use most days has its own story to tell.

The need for good hygiene dates back to the appearance of the first humans and their ancestors. Any mammal that takes in nutrition must deal with organic waste. Such management wasn’t always comfortable, and in some cases I guess, unsafe. Still, what must be done, must be done, in the beginning, now, and for some time yet.

“Our current conception of toilet paper, which is ‘actually a pretty modern invention relative to humanity and that’s, you know, simply because paper is a more modern invention,’ said Sophia Gholz, author of A History of Toilet Paper (and Other Potty Tools).”

Enter China. “Modern paper was invented in China during the Han dynasty about two millennia ago, but centuries passed before the material’s use as bath tissue became commonplace. People would instead clean themselves with whatever they had on hand — corn cobs, leaves, shells, you name it. When paper became more readily available beyond the wealthiest echelons, folks would simply reuse items like newspapers and ‘the Sears catalogue, and then the Sears catalogue went glossy and we stopped using that.’”

Presently, the most important challenge with TP concerns the perforation, those rows of pinprick holes which allow the paper to detach from the roll. It often tears, sometimes messily. How shameful we feel when it comes off the roll ragged and ripped. What a waste, whether one- or two- or even three-ply. The latest idea is to make toilet roll perforation wavy, and scalloped.

“In late 2023, Charmin, one of the most prominent TP brands in the US, teased the introduction of ‘something the toilet paper category hasn’t seen’ to its Ultra Soft rolls. The straight line of perforation — the row of tiny holes punched into the paper to make it easier to tear — was no longer straight. It was scalloped. The company said the waves were the product of five years of research and development.

Five years! OMG, the energy, the diligence, the brilliance applied to toilet paper design. Who knew? If we now have cell phone technology because of the Apollo 11 space mission in 1969 we now have scalloped TP because of countless engineering PhD studies in recent decades. Friends, the science is real:

“Barry Kudrowitz, professor of product design at the University of Minnesota and author of Sparking Creativity: How Play and Humor Fuel Innovation and Design, characterizes the scalloped edge as ‘incremental innovation.’ If you look at the grand scheme of things, it’s still toilet paper. The paper is basically just, you know, spreading around stuff.”

According to Charmin, “People love incremental innovation. We love it because it’s what we know. It’s in the same toilet paper holder, I use it the same way, but it has a slight benefit,” Kudrowitz says. “Incremental innovation is just so easy for us to just accept.”

The good news is that design changes go through testing­—click here to join a project near you (just kidding)—testing that includes wiping technique, absorption rates, and the most important of all, whether the paper should come off the top or bottom of the roll. Marriages have flourished or died on less, so I am told.

At the end of the day (or of the dump) “Liza Sanchez, vice president of research and development at Procter & Gamble notes, ‘We wanted to deliver the ideal dispensing experience.’”

So I encourage you to do your part, to head down the hall (to what mariners call “the head”) to make your own contribution to citizen-science data collection.

So, back to my story from last Friday at the swimming pool. What will I find in my favourite cubicle come Monday? Likely a smaller roll of paper in the dispenser; it will not jam this time, thankfully. I will definitely not find rolls with scalloped perforations; neither will I find a bidet. (I have two at home thankfully). I will endeavour to get to class on time, comforted with my newly acquired knowledge. Life goes on, as the TP comes off. Roll forward people.