The litmus test for the quality of life in the United States
Jim Thompson
By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
With all the Lefties, pre- and post-election, saying they will leave the United States, I’ll suggest they may want to take some tissue with them.
I have been in the paper industry for 50 years, starting in the tissue segment, which includes toilet paper (or bath tissue, if you prefer a more delicate term). Bath tissue is the first “luxury” for third world countries, only tied in some surveys with underwear as the first step on the way out of abject poverty.
Tissue (toilet paper, facial tissue and kitchen roll towels) is the basic marker indicating the quality of life where you live. At the forecast of severe weather, the first shelves stripped bare in the stores are milk, bread and bath tissue. By the way, if the disruptive threat is from overseas, such as the recent port strike, don’t worry, at least for a while, for we make all our tissue products here, but much of it from imported pulp.
So, how do I establish my claim? I only have to google: “In 2018 [latest year listed] North Americans consumed an average of 56 pounds of tissue per person. Africa and Far East Asia consumed around two pounds per person. The global average tissue consumption per capita was 11 pounds per year.”
Why focus on tissue as a measure of quality of life? It is simple. One can find any number of data points on the quality of life at the top of the economic ladder – expensive houses, glamorous automobiles, exotic locations and so forth. Those things are always consumed by a select and tiny minority in any location – they do not reflect the overall prosperity of a region.
It is like one time when I was going to an important job interview. I had my mentor go over everything I would wear, from socks to shoes to clothes and so forth (and how I would cut my hair). When it came to watches, he mentioned a fairly inexpensive watch from a well-known company. And he stopped there.
He said when it comes to watches, you can never outspend the status seekers. Watches (at the time) peaked at around $50,000 (this was nearly 40 years ago). His point was you can never come close so don’t even try. Simple, unobtrusive and no strain to join the crazed status ranks.
Thus, I measure secular quality of life at the bottom of the “food chain,” focusing on highly desired products – tissue – that require just a small income.
There is one appliance that can skew the use of tissue products toward lower consumption. That appliance is the bidet. In Japan, 79% of the houses have a bidet. This is due to their cleanliness culture.
In Italy, 75% of the houses have bidets because they passed a law in 1975 that all new houses must have bidets installed. The U.S. could have picked up on this trend with the housing boom after World War II, but GIs had seen these in use in brothels when overseas and apparently did not want to be reminded of their past indiscretions when they returned home.
Which brings us back to Highland County. Remember those large steel “drums” that passed through the county several years ago? They were headed to the then-new Sofidel tissue mill in Circleville. Sofidel is an Italian tissue company. They are now expanding that mill and have bought several others. Perhaps they saw the writing on the wall and decided to come to the relatively bidet-less United States.
Sometimes my columns end up in places I did not imagine when I started…
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.
TP, good for you, good for me
I have a long anecdote on the subject of Toilet Paper, which just now led me to realize that I failed as a leader and a as a friend when I was 21 years old. T.P. is one of those things that you don't think about much until you're stranded in a vulnerable state.
As a young Corporal, I was sent to the Navy Base in Norfolk, VA to load the amphibious ships for a 3-week cruise to Puerto Rico for training exercises and for qualifications for special operations in preparation for our upcoming deployment with the 6th Fleet.
A month prior, we had a weeklong shakedown cruise. As a familiarization evolution, for the younger Marines who have never been to sea (I was 21 with an adventurous deployment already under my web belt from earlier in the year). And it's an awakening for the new Navy sailors who have never been blessed to see Marines up-close and in person. That week on the USS Trenton (LPD-14), I remember there was a toilet paper issue. It was a long time ago, I just recollect that the ship's supply was slow to respond to the hygiene requirements when the vessel's population was tripled that week in December 1997.
After the holiday season, I went to Norfolk with the Embark NCO's and with the Combat Cargo detail. I was the lone Engineer with the front-end loader. The piece of heavy equipment that is vital for those ammo pallets and containers that just cannot be moved and stowed by hand. Of course, I have to figure out on my own, where I'm going to stay during the week at Norfolk. I'll just stay in the port side berthing area on the Trenton, where we were berthed a month ago. I'm by myself in that berthing area that late afternoon, and for the rest of the week. The head on that level is locked. Who knows where the Lead Petty Officer is with the keys. I found a head on the level below me that was unlocked. (Amphibious ships have a lot of quarters and sleeping areas that are only used when Marines are embarked. So the majority of the time, an amphibious ship moored in Virginia is relatively vacant.) I don't remember when and where I ate that week, but I do remember going to the Navy PX at Norfolk and buying a 4-pack of toilet paper, in preparation for the 20-day cruise and training excursion (when in the field, MRE's do have a few squares of TP in each package.) Yesterday, I had a rough epiphany when thinking about this TP story I could contribute.
Going back to my boring salty sea story, I only bought a 4-pack of TP for ME! for the mini-cruise... In retrospect, that was not good. I was young and selfish.., I was a Corporal. A leader of Marines. Money and basic pay was tight during the Clinton years, but I could have afforded 3 or 4 packs of TP to distribute to my detail of Engineers who were going to be arriving on board from NC the next week on our way for a short Caribbean cruise. I failed them. I was only thinking about my own TP needs. So what if the Clinton DoD and the ship's supply division wasn't funded properly or prepared to "spare a square" (a 'Seinfeld' reference). I knew of the potential TP shortage while my guys and I were underway. My commission as a non-commissioned officer in the Marine Corps is to take care of my men... Now here I am almost 27 years later, realizing I screwed up as a leader and as a Christian. All over the availability of commercial grade toilet paper from the Norfolk PX that I could have easily provided to my guys during a nice taxpayer-funded trip to the Caribbean in January.
As a side note, I believe that Navy ships use straight seawater in the commodes. Which makes sense. Why would you need to purify water to flush shhhh... poo and pee? I think the laundry on ships is done with seawater too. Somewhere, I have a couple sets of camouflage utility uniforms that have been through the "wringer." The camouflage pattern is faded and whitened. Either from the direct sunlight from being exposed to the sub-tropical sun for days on end or from the ship's laundry with a saltwater rinse.