3 Alternatives to Toilet Paper – Toilet Paper: The New Currency

Toilet paper is flying off of the shelves due to the coronavirus.

Toilet paper used to be an underrated prep. It’s generally so widely available that it was no big deal to just buy a little at a time. Same goes for pretty much anything else, such as canned foods, water, medication, etc.

But in many places around the world, toilet paper is the new currency due to the scarcity of the paper product due to panic buying.

Did you know that toilet paper was invented in 1857? However, toilet paper wasn’t commonly used until around the 1930s. And it wasn’t until 1990 when companies started adding aloe to it to make it softer and more pleasant to use.

Toilet paper has always been a prized commodity, though.

In Venezuela, toilet paper is worth more than money and it’s still extremely difficult to come by (going on a 6 year shortage).

In Hong Kong and Singapore, toilet paper is the new currency.

Australia is even being hit hard by lack of toilet paper. A cafe in Australia is allowing customers to pay in toilet paper.

Here in the US, we’ve seen a toilet paper shortage nation-wide.

As preppers, we’ve always known the importance of toilet paper.

Everyone needs to wipe their bum in some way or another, right?

But we’ve also understood that you can only store so much. Even though toilet paper is fairly lightweight, it’s big and bulky, which makes it difficult to store a lot of. Unless you have a bunker. You lucky doomsday preppers, you.

Even the compressed toilet paper are out of stock and in fact, many of them are price gouging.

If you have toilet paper, hold onto it. Use alternative means. Because that toilet paper is worth its weight in gold.

Here are 3 alternatives to toilet paper:

Bidet –

A bidet is a great way to keep clean and sanitary, without the need for waste (such as toilet paper). Toilet paper is pretty wasteful, if you think about it and really not the most effective way of cleaning our bums.

Instead of buying a whole new toilet or toilet seat, get a travel bidet.

Of course, you will have to have access to plenty of water for this to be a viable option. In many cases, this won’t be a problem. But in some places, even water can be difficult to come by, so just be aware.

Cloth Squares/Rags –

Any type of standard cotton squares made for cleaning or the cotton squares made for sewing projects, will work wonderfully as toilet paper.

You can also easily make your own from rags, used clothing, used sheets or get a roll of fabric and cut/sew up your own squares!

With this method, after each use, you’d place the cotton squares in a bucket of bleach/water mixture to soak. Every couple of days, you’d do a thorough cleaning of the squares.

I’ve used this method as baby wipes and it works amazingly well.

Nature –

Nature provides! Mullein is the most popular toilet paper option as it’s nice and soft.

Some other options would be:

• Bundle dry grass
• Bundle of dry leaves
• Packed snow
• Bundles of fibrous inner bark
• Stones
• Shells
• Corn cobs

Yes, some of these may sound “weird”, but they absolutely work.

Overall, get creative!

Tissues, wipes, magazines, newspapers…literally anything can be used to wipe our bums. Ask yourself: how did people ever survive without toilet paper?

Good luck!