A revolution is coming in our smallest room: the toilet roll without a cardboard sleeve is coming. In the Netherlands, this could save up to 3 billion toilet rolls every year, which now end up as waste paper or residual waste. Or in the kindergarten teacher’s craft box.
Saskia van Westreenen
Economics reporter
The invention was marketed by Edet, part of the larger Essity group. The smart toilet roll received the Wheel of Retail innovation award last week.
A smart kitchen roll will soon be launched on the market, without that familiar cardboard inner sleeve. “We have already saved almost a million cardboard tubes,” says Nicky Sieben, spokesperson for Essity.
Years of innovation preceded the development. According to the group, the cardboard rolls left over after going to the toilet turned out to be ‘a universally recognizable irritation point’ in many households.
But that inner sleeve was there for a reason; it provides strength, so that the roll remains nice and round. And the innovation department has now found a solution for exactly that.
Secret of the blacksmith
The group does not reveal the blacksmith’s secret, but mentions ‘a technology in which the paper is rolled up and stabilized very precisely’. ‘As a result, the roll retains its shape and the last sheets are just as usable and hygienic as the first.’
The smart toilet roll is made in Germany and was launched there for the first time. Now it is the turn of the Netherlands and more European countries.
And soon the smart kitchen roll will also be on the shelves. This caused the most headaches, because a kitchen roll – the paper is thicker and heavier – is extra weak without its cardboard sleeve, while the roll must fit snugly in a holder on many countertops.
1000 kilos of raw material saved
“I am proud of it,” says commercial director Josyne Brouns. The group reports that 1,000 kilos of raw materials have been saved since the introduction.
Additional advantage: the rollers without sleeves can hold twice as many sheets. This saves additional costs in transport and packaging.
It is impossible to say how quickly all the cardboard toilet rolls lying around will disappear from Dutch toilets. Because whether other brands will quickly follow suit, that is not the issue at Edet.
And that also applies to the question of what crafters should do without that cardboard toilet roll as a rewarding building block for surprises.
From an old newspaper to 120 toilet rolls per person
In 1857, the American Joseph Gayetty was the first in the world to sell toilet paper on a commercial scale. He launched flat sheets of paper soaked in aloe vera. Gayetty was so proud of his invention that he had his name printed on every sheet of paper.
Brothers Clarence and E. Irvin Scott were the first to introduce toilet paper on rolls in 1890. They built a paper mill for it in Pennsylvania and became world famous. The Scott brand is still a well-known supplier of paper towels, tissues and toilet paper.
In the US and also in Europe, it would take decades before the public switched to toilet paper. Most people simply thought it was way too expensive. They preferred to use old newspapers or tear pages out of catalogues. This way they had something to read while going to the toilet.
According to conservative estimates, a Dutch person now uses between 100 and 120 toilet rolls per year. The paper goes into the sewer, between two and three billion cardboard sleeves end up as waste paper or residual waste every year.
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