Rationing and robbery: Coronavirus outbreak sparks toilet roll panic

By Byron Kaye, Chris Gallagher

 

Boxes containing toilet paper are seen in Toowoomba, Australia February 10, 2020. in this picture obtained from social media. CHRIS AND HAIDEE JANETZKI via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES.

 

SYDNEY/TOKYO (Reuters) - In Australia, major grocers have restricted supplies to one pack per person. In Japan, rolls are chained to the wall in public toilets. In Hong Kong, armed robbers carried out a heist as supplies were delivered to a supermarket.

 

Toilet paper has emerged as the unlikely No.1 stockpiling target for people across Asia who are worried that the spread of the coronavirus epidemic will lead to supply shortages.

 

While other household products - including disinfectants, tissues and staples like rice and pasta - have also proved popular, it is the humble toilet roll that has inspired showdowns in supermarket aisles and countless social media memes.

 

The demand has caught many shoppers and sellers short, but psychologists say hoarding is a natural human reaction in times of high anxiety - and a desire to ensure sufficient supplies for lavatory visits in particular is not too much of a surprise.

 

“When we’re buying stuff, things close to the body are very comforting, whether that be food, body care or in this case toilet paper,” Adam Ferrier, a Melbourne-based psychologist who specialises in consumer behaviour, told Reuters.

 

“The size of toilet paper makes it feel like a substantial, big purchase. It makes it feel like you’re doing something. It taps back into that need for control. If you’re buying a hefty big pack of toilet paper, you kind of feel like you’re ‘stocking up’. You signify to yourself that you’re in control.”

 

Photos posted on social media showed plenty of shoppers in Asia seeking control this week as they pushed precariously overloaded carts to checkout counters after stripping shelves bare.

 

In Australia, police were called out to settle grocery aisle disputes, a delivery truck catching fire due to a mechanical fault made national headlines, and outback newspaper The NT News published an eight-page liftout of blank paper saying the move was to give the nation what it wanted.

 

“It’s been a wild week. Everyone’s been on the edge of their seat looking at what’s happening,” said Simon Griffiths, co-founder of Who Gives A Crap, a social enterprise that sells recycled toilet paper and gives half its profit to sanitation-related charity.

 

The company had to suspend store sales and new subscriptions on Wednesday when sales volumes jumped 1100% the day before.

 

SOCIAL MEDIA ROLE

 

In Japan, the economy ministry has launched a publicity campaign to urge calm, posting daily photos on its Twitter account of delivery trucks carrying toilet rolls arriving full at their destinations and of replenished store aisles.

 

“We wanted to send a message for consumers to understand that inventory was arriving,” ministry spokesman Yasushi Nozawa told Reuters, adding that while there was no shortage of supply of toilet rolls, distribution networks were struggling to keep up.

 

“Inventory has piled up at warehouses,” he said. “We have requested a doubling of daily delivery capacity from 20 million rolls to 40 million.”

 

It’s not the first time Japan has succumbed to toilet paper fever. During the global oil crisis of 1973, there were violent scenes in some stores as people rushed to buy bathroom tissue, fearing disruption to production.

 

Singapore-based academics Roland Bouffanais and Lim Sun Sun said this time around, social media played a major role in making the worries of a toilet paper crunch “propagate like a wildfire.”

 

“Collective behaviours among humans are remarkably similar to processes in the animal kingdom such as schooling among fish and flocking among birds,” they wrote in an editorial about toilet roll hoarding in the Straits Times newspaper.

 

STACKING UP

 

The situation has also led to some unusually frank comments by Asian politicians.

 

Singapore Trade Minister Chan Chun Sing was reported by local media as calling the panic buying idiotic in a meeting with business leaders, quipping: “Why stock toilet paper? If you eat all the rice and instant noodles you confirm diarrhoea.”

 

In Taiwan, during a brief toilet paper panic last month, Premier Su Tseng-chang called for calm on his Facebook page, saying people “only have one butt-hole,” to widespread amusement across the island.

 

After a week of panic buying, Japan’s biggest supermarket chain Aeon Co resorted to stacking up 12-roll packs in prominent displays at some of its stores to reassure customers there was plenty to go round.

 

“Our goal is to eliminate people’s fears,” said Aeon spokesman Daisuke Yokota. “So we’re piling them into these huge towers, to send the message: boom, there’s plenty.”

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-03-06

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The butt sprayer, common in Thai toilets, remove the need to steal toilet paper...cleaner...more efficient...less brown skid marks!

1 hour ago, snoop1130 said:

In Hong Kong, armed robbers carried out a heist as supplies were delivered to a supermarket.

A police spokesman said, "We've got nothing to go on."

1 hour ago, Puchaiyank said:

The butt sprayer, common in Thai toilets, remove the need to steal toilet paper...cleaner...more efficient...less brown skid marks!

All hail the bum gun!

Maybe I should stock up on these :

 

Toilet paper has only been around for what, 100 years or so? What did humans use for most of their history? Leaves? Bare hands? The tongues of hungry dogs?

9 hours ago, Puchaiyank said:

The butt sprayer, common in Thai toilets, remove the need to steal toilet paper...cleaner...more efficient...less brown skid marks!

I love my bum gun !

43 minutes ago, techietraveller84 said:

Toilet paper has only been around for what, 100 years or so? What did humans use for most of their history? Leaves? Bare hands? The tongues of hungry dogs?

Leaves!!! But user must know their flora as some species cause itching.

As I split my time between Thailand and Oz let me confirm that this report is quite true.

 

A panic prompted solely by social media descended upon my town of 25,000 people (NSW) three days ago and the shelves of Coles,Woolworths,IGA and Aldi were,indeed,emptied of toilet paper.

 

They got down to the real nitty gritty of their social media addicted lives on this one.

I could understand panic beer buying or a run on the bank, but bog roll? Didn't even know they had that in Oz. 

Anyway, one should only require three sheets per sitting; one up, one down and one to polish... or get a bum gun and hair drier. 

13 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

outback newspaper The NT News

 

Outback, it;s a Darwin City rag!

A troll post has been removed. 

I live in OZ and have bum guns - this may seem selfish, but if I did not have them I still cannot understand why some people bought massive amounts of dunny paper (I use a little). Now limited purchases in supermarkets - you can only buy 20 rolls or so. I still cannot figure why people thought it would be crucial. Factories are going 24 hours a day.

+1000 for the bum gun. Have had one stateside for years.

55 minutes ago, Chassa said:

 

Outback, it;s a Darwin City rag!

Yes. Always a fun read.

I just don,t get it ! Are people so afraid of the virus that they are cr***ing themselves ?

This thread is a perfect example of why anyone seeking to retain even a shred of dignity, has long fled the place. It beggars belief; along with the current government!!! Poor fellow my country......

47 minutes ago, DoctorG said:

1 hour ago, Chassa said:

Outback, it;s a Darwin City rag!

Yes. Always a fun read.

The Northern Territory News is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Darwin, Australia. It is a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Now you know why! 555 

I always thought that using dunny paper was a smear tactic.

8 minutes ago, FarFlungFalang said:

I always thought that using dunny paper was a smear tactic.

That was invented in Virginia Water near Staines, Surrey, UK.

The most important reason that makes me stay in Thailand is the bum gun! ????

6 hours ago, daveAustin said:

I could understand panic beer buying or a run on the bank, but bog roll? Didn't even know they had that in Oz. 

Anyway, one should only require three sheets per sitting; one up, one down and one to polish... or get a bum gun and hair drier. 

Did you say sitting or <deleted>ting? ????

Well interesting to see what Australian put at the top of their Priority list.  

10 hours ago, techietraveller84 said:

Toilet paper has only been around for what, 100 years or so? What did humans use for most of their history? Leaves? Bare hands? The tongues of hungry dogs?

Vikings in my neck of the woods used moss. Some still do.

I do as the Thai do, use a butt sprayer eliminating the need to buy any toilet rolls.

3 minutes ago, DannyCarlton said:

Vikings in my neck of the woods used moss. Some still do.

You still have Vikings round your way?

9 hours ago, URMySunshine said:

I love my bum gun !

Me to ,mine has traveled to places ,no human has ever dared to go. 

10 hours ago, techietraveller84 said:

Toilet paper has only been around for what, 100 years or so? What did humans use for most of their history? Leaves? Bare hands? The tongues of hungry dogs?

????

A question was proposed, if you got sticky chocolate in your hair, would you use tissues to remove it or just stick your head under the shower? I think this wraps up the case for the hallowed "bum gun"....

I think that while funny, it's also sad that hysteria spreads so easily. We have so much information literally available at our fingertips to educate ourselves and realize the fear and hysteria spread by the media is silly.