How Much Toilet Paper Do You REALLY Need? Try This Calculator

By
Lloyd Alter
Lloyd Alter
Design Editor
  • University of Toronto
Lloyd Alter is Design Editor for Treehugger and teaches Sustainable Design at Ryerson University in Toronto.
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Lloyd Alter
Updated March 20, 2020
©. People shop for toilet paper at a Costco store in Novato, California on March 14, 2020 /JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images

Here's a handy calculator to figure it out, so that you don't have to fill the entire pickup truck with it.

It seems that toilet paper is being hoarded everywhere! Even in Ontario, Canada, that's covered in trees, where most of the stuff comes from, the Premier has to beg:


After we wrote "Can't find any toilet paper? Get a bidet" the genius PhDs and mathematicians at Omni Calculator whipped up a toilet paper calculator to tell everyone how much toilet paper you actually need; it is less than you think. The calculator takes into account the size of your family and the size of the wad of paper you use. At my suggestion, they added a calculation of how much water and wood is consumed making it. It's a lot more than you think. See a prettier version of the calculator here or the embed below, and stop hoarding!

Toilet Paper Calculator