5 ms·

Buy a bidet! I thought this was a fun tidbit: "The US accounts for more than 20% of global tissue consumption despite having only 4% of the world’s populati

by ericmay 2mo ago

Buy a bidet! I thought this was a fun tidbit: "The US accounts for more than 20% of global tissue consumption despite having only 4% of the world’s population. The average American uses 141 rolls of toilet paper per year, making them No 1 for No 2s globally, just ahead of Germans, each using an average of 134 rolls annually." I'm not sure if using a bidet would be better for the environment but maybe this is a blessing in disguise on the environmental front. I'm also curious, is there any reporting on increases in Canadian prices as a result of their tariffs on American products or does that only go one way? I always read (especially in international papers like the Guardian) about Americans seeing price increases but I see very little reporting on price increases/decreases or changes in other countries. Also maybe someone can remind me, in the past (before Trump 1 even) were there any tariffs on American products that anyone can point to? I see on the news channels discussion about how Canada has historically placed tariffs American dairy products. Did that result in higher prices in Canada? How did their economy handle the lack of American dairy imports at lower prices (if they were lower)?

kotaKat 2mo ago
And if you really wanted... buy washable toilet paper towels. https://www.marleysmonsters.com/collections/toilet-unpaper-accessories https://www.marleysmonsters.com/collections/toilet-unpaper-a... As someone on the border, the tariffs do screw over individual folks on both sides of it. Canadian grocery prices are awfully high and they've been known for various price-fixing scandals (the Loblaws bread-fixing apology gift cards come to mind) so there's often a lot of Canadian Walmart/Sams Club/Local Grocery shoppers. One of the odd things is that Americans had it better coming back to the US from Canada after a day out shopping - we could bring back $800, but the Canadians going home could only bring back $50 or so, unless they were out for more than 48 hours then got $800. US Customs was also hilariously lax on actually enforcing things ("anything to declare?" "ah, I spent $200 at IKEA" gets a handwave) compared to the Canadians that'll fine-tooth comb the vehicle to pull every penny of duty they can coming home to Canada.
- ericmay 2mo ago
  > And if you really wanted... buy washable toilet paper towels. https://www.marleysmonsters.com/collections/toilet-unpaper-a https://www.marleysmonsters.com/collections/toilet-unpaper-a... I'm simultaneously surprised and not surprised that this exists (we buy washable paper towels and beeswax items and similar for reusability) but even I think that's even a bridge too far. More power to anyone who is using those products though. I've personally always found US customs easy to deal with for purchased products. When we came back from France last year with around a case of wine my wife was worried and I'm like what is there to worry about? we're not smuggling anything and the worst case is we just pay a duty on the wine of a $1 or $2. You just declare it and if duties are applicable you just pay them. It always seemed to me they were really there to just keep people from doing crazy things or outright breaking import laws. Similar to your experience, coming back from Toronto with a few purchased items, US customs just did not care at all.
  - kotaKat 2mo ago
    Canadian duty is insane on some items. When I was a pimply-faced youth at the Duty Free, the going rate we used to tell people was "a dollar an ounce". I saw some spirits that were quoted at $40-80+ a bottle, depending on a bunch of factors, when you go over the relatively small limit. Bringing home a case of Kentucky sipping burbon to Toronto will hurt you right in the wallet a few times over.
  - pfdietz 2mo ago
    Washable cloth towels work just fine, if not in a public restroom.
deleted 2mo ago
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- deleted 2mo ago
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SubiculumCode 2mo ago
Once you go bidet, you don't go back. There are lots of nice kits that you can install on your existing toilet too, making it super easy. [1] is a generic Amazon search. Electricity not required for most We use so much less tp since we got one. [1] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bidet+kit https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bidet+kit
stuff4ben 2mo ago
Unfortunately I don't have electrical in my toilet closet in my master bath. I'd totally do it though.
- ericmay 2mo ago
  They have battery operated ones! Maybe there's still an option for you there.
- SubiculumCode 2mo ago
  I have two bidets, neither use electricity. Also they fit on existing toilets. Just search bidet kit.
- quickthrowman 2mo ago
  You only need electricity if you want heated water, I’d guess that a bidet comes with a tee fitting with a valve on the T side that goes in between the supply valve and toilet supply line, allowing the supply valve to provide water to both the toilet and bidet.
- pupppet 2mo ago
  Don't need a heated bidet. We get -40C days here and I'll still take the ice-laser to the behind over TP.
everdrive 2mo ago
I'm not sure how to discuss bidet problems without sounding gross. I tried a bidet previously because people rave about them. But when trying them, there seems to be two problems. The water that hits you sprays around on impact. So that immediately-sullied water now has a bit of blast radius to it. I also can't see down there, so having done what certainly felt like a pretty thorough job bidet-ing, I would wipe and discover the job was not so thorough. So although you could potentially use a bidet to reduce your toilet paper usage, toilet paper itself allows you to actually check whether or not you got everything, which just seems impossible with a bidet alone. And if I only used the bidet, then what am I supposed to do to dry myself? It feels like TP needs to be in the mix at least a little bit. Am I just using it wrong? Does a lifetime of using it give your brain a clearer sense of where the water has hit and what "clean" feels like.
- kg 2mo ago
  You still use TP, you can just use a lot less and you end up cleaner than with TP alone as a bonus.
- XorNot 2mo ago
  The bidet takes care of most of the cleaning and then you use TP to check and dry off. The main benefit is those times you'll otherwise go through half a roll (also means you don't rub through the skin).
- ForOldHack 2mo ago
  Nothing you have ever thought or said in your life is more disgusting than the idiot who is causing this problem in the first place.
ButlerianJihad 2mo ago
During the lockdowns, my local Catholic parish office indicated to me that they held some TP in reserve, in case any parishioners got desperate during the shortages. There were really problematic runs on items like that in every store in our area. Of course, if you had excess TP, it was also a good strategic donation, for the less fortunate. I contemplated a bidet during the lockdowns, and some YouTubers were touting their convenience and comfort. But ultimately, I rent an apartment with a landlady, and there's no way a bidet could get installed and survive my lease agreement. So I decided that a good compromise was to start buying wet wipes. I found the "Sensitive" Huggies to be fairly good. Unscented and gentle. There's also "Honest" brand at Target, marketed to adults. Supposedly flushable. I don't flush them. It's been working out so well that I carry around the wet wipes in my pocket, everywhere I go. They have saved me in many situations in many public restrooms. And they can also clean up my hands if I happen to get muddy or gritty while I'm out and about.
- mywittyname 2mo ago
  A) Don't flush your wet wipes please. They go in the trash bin. B) They make bidets that are trivial to install/remove. I have one that connects inline with the water lines and it took like 4 minutes to install. But you can also get a portable one. They range from squirt bottle for your bum to fancy battery powered devices with USB-c charging.
digdugdirk 2mo ago
Yes, Canadian dairy prices were always higher than US prices, probably by 10-20 percent or so. There's an internal quota system, and a prescribed allowable volume for imports with very high tariffs on imports above that prescribed limit. Canada did this to protect its dairy industry, and to ensure there's a level of self sufficiency to their food production. Canada has the same issue in many industries, where the need/desire for Canadian firms to compete against US firms - even though Canada has a population roughly a tenth the size of the US - results in a handful of bloated monopolies/monopsonies that the Canadian population has to deal with. For an alternative perspective you can look at the US healthcare system, where the US has a protectionist system that props up its healthcare industry (insurance, providers, pharma companies, etc) at the expense of its population, to the tune of about 2x what Canada spends per capita. Canadians who live near the border will commonly hop over for some shopping and fill up their tank with cheap gas, while Americans try to fill their prescriptions from Canadian pharmacies and travel to Mexico for procedures they can't afford to get done in the US. It's all a matter of what the system is set up to do.
- ericmay 2mo ago
  Got it, so really Canada has historically instituted protectionist policies to protect certain industries and ensure self-sufficiency for items deemed important to national security/national welfare and the result at least in part is consolidation into monopolistic entities in Canada. I'm curious what options Canada has to break up these monopolies and lower prices with respect to their ongoing protectionist policies?
  - digdugdirk 2mo ago
    Honestly, most of the incentives aren't aligned with breaking them up or trying to lower prices. If the large corporate entities were broken up, they wouldn't have the scale to compete against their much larger American counterparts. They'd either get pushed out or bought up. And low prices aren't the goal for a company that is protected by government policies - they'll aim to maximize profits within the policy framework instead, and the framework itself does the job of preventing competition from smaller upstart rivals. Think of the Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier. Canada wants to keep a domestic aircraft manufacturer around so they have a backup in case of US shenanigans (like what just happened with the F-35) so the government ensures there's ongoing contracts for those domestic aircraft as well as subsidies for things like manufacturing plant expansion or modernization. But Canada's population only needs so many aircraft, so why would they waste government resources on a new upstart rival aircraft manufacturer? Bombardier knows this too, so why would they spend their own resources on R&D or modernization when they know they can get the government to pay for it instead? It's a feedback loop, and not necessarily a good one.
Marsymars 2mo ago
> I'm also curious, is there any reporting on increases in Canadian prices as a result of their tariffs on American products or does that only go one way? The current counter-tariffs haven't taken effect yet, but yes, various products saw price increases with the previous sets. Though TBH, I personally saw more increases in prices from American tariffs on Chinese goods where American sellers couldn't be bothered to sell goods to Canada without first importing to the US and just tacked on a price increase for all buyers. To the best of my ability I've avoided those products/sellers.

by ericmay 2mo ago

kotaKat 2mo ago

And if you really wanted... buy washable toilet paper towels. https://www.marleysmonsters.com/collections/toilet-unpaper-accessories https://www.marleysmonsters.com/collections/toilet-unpaper-a... As someone on the border, the tariffs do screw over individual folks on both sides of it. Canadian grocery prices are awfully high and they've been known for various price-fixing scandals (the Loblaws bread-fixing apology gift cards come to mind) so there's often a lot of Canadian Walmart/Sams Club/Local Grocery shoppers. One of the odd things is that Americans had it better coming back to the US from Canada after a day out shopping - we could bring back $800, but the Canadians going home could only bring back $50 or so, unless they were out for more than 48 hours then got $800. US Customs was also hilariously lax on actually enforcing things ("anything to declare?" "ah, I spent $200 at IKEA" gets a handwave) compared to the Canadians that'll fine-tooth comb the vehicle to pull every penny of duty they can coming home to Canada.

ericmay 2mo ago
> And if you really wanted... buy washable toilet paper towels. https://www.marleysmonsters.com/collections/toilet-unpaper-a https://www.marleysmonsters.com/collections/toilet-unpaper-a... I'm simultaneously surprised and not surprised that this exists (we buy washable paper towels and beeswax items and similar for reusability) but even I think that's even a bridge too far. More power to anyone who is using those products though. I've personally always found US customs easy to deal with for purchased products. When we came back from France last year with around a case of wine my wife was worried and I'm like what is there to worry about? we're not smuggling anything and the worst case is we just pay a duty on the wine of a $1 or $2. You just declare it and if duties are applicable you just pay them. It always seemed to me they were really there to just keep people from doing crazy things or outright breaking import laws. Similar to your experience, coming back from Toronto with a few purchased items, US customs just did not care at all.
- kotaKat 2mo ago
  Canadian duty is insane on some items. When I was a pimply-faced youth at the Duty Free, the going rate we used to tell people was "a dollar an ounce". I saw some spirits that were quoted at $40-80+ a bottle, depending on a bunch of factors, when you go over the relatively small limit. Bringing home a case of Kentucky sipping burbon to Toronto will hurt you right in the wallet a few times over.
- pfdietz 2mo ago
  Washable cloth towels work just fine, if not in a public restroom.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]

SubiculumCode 2mo ago

Once you go bidet, you don't go back. There are lots of nice kits that you can install on your existing toilet too, making it super easy. [1] is a generic Amazon search. Electricity not required for most We use so much less tp since we got one. [1] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bidet+kit https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bidet+kit

stuff4ben 2mo ago

Unfortunately I don't have electrical in my toilet closet in my master bath. I'd totally do it though.

ericmay 2mo ago
They have battery operated ones! Maybe there's still an option for you there.
SubiculumCode 2mo ago
I have two bidets, neither use electricity. Also they fit on existing toilets. Just search bidet kit.
quickthrowman 2mo ago
You only need electricity if you want heated water, I’d guess that a bidet comes with a tee fitting with a valve on the T side that goes in between the supply valve and toilet supply line, allowing the supply valve to provide water to both the toilet and bidet.
pupppet 2mo ago
Don't need a heated bidet. We get -40C days here and I'll still take the ice-laser to the behind over TP.

everdrive 2mo ago

I'm not sure how to discuss bidet problems without sounding gross. I tried a bidet previously because people rave about them. But when trying them, there seems to be two problems. The water that hits you sprays around on impact. So that immediately-sullied water now has a bit of blast radius to it. I also can't see down there, so having done what certainly felt like a pretty thorough job bidet-ing, I would wipe and discover the job was not so thorough. So although you could potentially use a bidet to reduce your toilet paper usage, toilet paper itself allows you to actually check whether or not you got everything, which just seems impossible with a bidet alone. And if I only used the bidet, then what am I supposed to do to dry myself? It feels like TP needs to be in the mix at least a little bit. Am I just using it wrong? Does a lifetime of using it give your brain a clearer sense of where the water has hit and what "clean" feels like.

kg 2mo ago
You still use TP, you can just use a lot less and you end up cleaner than with TP alone as a bonus.
XorNot 2mo ago
The bidet takes care of most of the cleaning and then you use TP to check and dry off. The main benefit is those times you'll otherwise go through half a roll (also means you don't rub through the skin).
ForOldHack 2mo ago
Nothing you have ever thought or said in your life is more disgusting than the idiot who is causing this problem in the first place.

ButlerianJihad 2mo ago

During the lockdowns, my local Catholic parish office indicated to me that they held some TP in reserve, in case any parishioners got desperate during the shortages. There were really problematic runs on items like that in every store in our area. Of course, if you had excess TP, it was also a good strategic donation, for the less fortunate. I contemplated a bidet during the lockdowns, and some YouTubers were touting their convenience and comfort. But ultimately, I rent an apartment with a landlady, and there's no way a bidet could get installed and survive my lease agreement. So I decided that a good compromise was to start buying wet wipes. I found the "Sensitive" Huggies to be fairly good. Unscented and gentle. There's also "Honest" brand at Target, marketed to adults. Supposedly flushable. I don't flush them. It's been working out so well that I carry around the wet wipes in my pocket, everywhere I go. They have saved me in many situations in many public restrooms. And they can also clean up my hands if I happen to get muddy or gritty while I'm out and about.

mywittyname 2mo ago
A) Don't flush your wet wipes please. They go in the trash bin. B) They make bidets that are trivial to install/remove. I have one that connects inline with the water lines and it took like 4 minutes to install. But you can also get a portable one. They range from squirt bottle for your bum to fancy battery powered devices with USB-c charging.

digdugdirk 2mo ago

Yes, Canadian dairy prices were always higher than US prices, probably by 10-20 percent or so. There's an internal quota system, and a prescribed allowable volume for imports with very high tariffs on imports above that prescribed limit. Canada did this to protect its dairy industry, and to ensure there's a level of self sufficiency to their food production. Canada has the same issue in many industries, where the need/desire for Canadian firms to compete against US firms - even though Canada has a population roughly a tenth the size of the US - results in a handful of bloated monopolies/monopsonies that the Canadian population has to deal with. For an alternative perspective you can look at the US healthcare system, where the US has a protectionist system that props up its healthcare industry (insurance, providers, pharma companies, etc) at the expense of its population, to the tune of about 2x what Canada spends per capita. Canadians who live near the border will commonly hop over for some shopping and fill up their tank with cheap gas, while Americans try to fill their prescriptions from Canadian pharmacies and travel to Mexico for procedures they can't afford to get done in the US. It's all a matter of what the system is set up to do.

ericmay 2mo ago
Got it, so really Canada has historically instituted protectionist policies to protect certain industries and ensure self-sufficiency for items deemed important to national security/national welfare and the result at least in part is consolidation into monopolistic entities in Canada. I'm curious what options Canada has to break up these monopolies and lower prices with respect to their ongoing protectionist policies?
- digdugdirk 2mo ago
  Honestly, most of the incentives aren't aligned with breaking them up or trying to lower prices. If the large corporate entities were broken up, they wouldn't have the scale to compete against their much larger American counterparts. They'd either get pushed out or bought up. And low prices aren't the goal for a company that is protected by government policies - they'll aim to maximize profits within the policy framework instead, and the framework itself does the job of preventing competition from smaller upstart rivals. Think of the Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier. Canada wants to keep a domestic aircraft manufacturer around so they have a backup in case of US shenanigans (like what just happened with the F-35) so the government ensures there's ongoing contracts for those domestic aircraft as well as subsidies for things like manufacturing plant expansion or modernization. But Canada's population only needs so many aircraft, so why would they waste government resources on a new upstart rival aircraft manufacturer? Bombardier knows this too, so why would they spend their own resources on R&D or modernization when they know they can get the government to pay for it instead? It's a feedback loop, and not necessarily a good one.

Marsymars 2mo ago

> I'm also curious, is there any reporting on increases in Canadian prices as a result of their tariffs on American products or does that only go one way? The current counter-tariffs haven't taken effect yet, but yes, various products saw price increases with the previous sets. Though TBH, I personally saw more increases in prices from American tariffs on Chinese goods where American sellers couldn't be bothered to sell goods to Canada without first importing to the US and just tacked on a price increase for all buyers. To the best of my ability I've avoided those products/sellers.