Americans have already started noticing a decline in toilet paper rolls in their local stores as customer apparently bulk buy - despite the majority of paper being produced domestically
Toilet paper ‘panic buying’ has been reported in parts of the country, as Americans fear the impact of the ongoing port strike.
Roughly 45,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association walked out on Tuesday morning after their contract with the ports expired. News that the strike could impact 36 ports appears to have led some consumers to buy rolls upon rolls of toilet paper in a panic, with shoppers posting pictures of their local stores with empty shelves.
Social media users in New Jersey, Colorado, Virginia and other states reported shelves cleaned out of toilet paper.
I think most of the general pop stopped paying attention by the time that was clear. Hopefully more idiots will try to scalp TP and stores will refuse their returns when the scalpers realize any shortages caused by runs (heh) are temporary.
IIRC, the shortage in 2020 was only in stores and warehouse storage didn’t even get fully tapped out before things stabilized.
I also remember going to the stores and being surprised there was still tons of pasta while people were scrambling for TP. I didn’t use a bidet at that time (do now though), but even then my thought was “even if we run out of TP entirely, you can just start taking a shower after shitting, but there isn’t an easy alternative if the food runs out”. The pasta runs came later, but I was already stocked up.