Toilet Paper

Palmpilot said:
What about sterilizing alcohol?
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Not available at pharmacies, haven’t checked grocery or commercial outlets.

Various commercial online outlets flying under the radar ostensibly for other uses still seem to have stock, but don’t need it, so haven’t actually tried any orders.

I have some of the stuff here for electronics work, haven’t used it for sterilization particularly though. Some of mine has unknown amounts of water contamination also, but in a pinch if I thought it was necessary...

Or chugging it as some apparently thought they should do. LOL.
 
Palmpilot said:
What about sterilizing alcohol?
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I've seen it at Safeway, and somewhere else I can't remember; maybe a neighborhood hardware/dry goods store. Safeway also had hand sanitizer made by a couple distilleries.
 
I've been seeing 70% Isopropyl out here regularly, even briefly had some off-brand sanitizer once. This week's trip only seemed to have my boxed pasta and fresh chicken missing, plenty of store brand TP, eggs, milk, beef. Which is fine as they still had plenty of frozen chicken breasts and everything else frozen.
 
jordane93 said:
The only thing that was out of stock was liquid hand soap. They did have plenty of liquid dish soap and bar soap though.
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Dish soap and hand soap are pretty much the same thing. In fact Dawn and some other brands of liquid dishwashing soap now actually label the product as both hand soap and dishwashing soap.

Car washing soap is also similar. And plain old shampoo, like Suave brand, is also very similar.

I’ve got a big jug of car wash soap that I’ll use for hands, in a pinch.
 
NoHeat said:
Dish soap and hand soap are pretty much the same thing. In fact Dawn and some other brands of liquid dishwashing soap now actually label the product as both hand soap and dishwashing soap.

Car washing soap is also similar. And plain old shampoo, like Suave brand, is also very similar.

I’ve got a big jug of car wash soap that I’ll use for hands, in a pinch.
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Yea I’m not running low on soap yet. But if it gets to that I can just use bar soap or dish soap.
 
Palmpilot said:
If businesses can't get TP from commercial suppliers, then why are restaurants giving out rolls of toilet paper when people pick up their orders?
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Because they've been effectively closed for two months, have not used the stock they had and are looking for any "hook" they can find to generate traffic?
 
I've used a couple public bathrooms in parks and have been surprised that they have TP in the dispensers. I would have thought that was the first thing people would steal, even if they had to unwind the roll.
 
Everskyward said:
I've used a couple public bathrooms in parks and have been surprised that they have TP in the dispensers. I would have thought that was the first thing people would steal, even if they had to unwind the roll.
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Karen’s medical office had a TP theft the other day.

Honestly they’re well stocked through the nearly dead commercial suppliers who have the giant rolls for janitorial companies and if someone was that hard up, the Doc would have just handed them a roll from the janitorial closet so the books could be kept properly.

But big hospital company and such, the poor security guards had to do paperwork.

So dumb.

Our company also quietly and discreetly helped out anybody who was having trouble finding anything in our janitorial closet also. The building is empty, nobody’s cleaning it on the frequency it usually was done.

Packaging ain’t great for home use, for some of the stuff, but the folks who needed it didn’t seem to mind figuring something out.
 
NoHeat said:
Dish soap and hand soap are pretty much the same thing. In fact Dawn and some other brands of liquid dishwashing soap now actually label the product as both hand soap and dishwashing soap.

Car washing soap is also similar. And plain old shampoo, like Suave brand, is also very similar.

I’ve got a big jug of car wash soap that I’ll use for hands, in a pinch.
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True... and last month there was (at least locally) a severe shortage of dishwashing soap (Dawn, Palmolive, etc.) that lasted at least 3 weeks.
 
TP seemed fully stocked this morning at Safeway, although only one brand (Northern). No limit. There were even little bottles of hand sanitizer. No limit on meat, which was also fully stocked. As someone else mentioned, the only chicken was the expensive, free-range type. Dairy was a little low (maybe half-stocked), but plenty of different brands of eggs. Lots of produce. An incredible number of cut flowers. Never seen so many there.
 
asicer said:
They're gearing up for a mother's day rush.
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That makes sense. Also, I don't think florists in the city are open. But I haven't been paying much attention to that.
 
RJM62 said:
I just had to replenish on bar soap. The last case I bought was in 2010 or so. It lasts surprisingly long.

Rich
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The only time I use bar soap is when I’m at the hotels. Every time I use it, it seems to dry out my skin too much.
 
jordane93 said:
The only time I use bar soap is when I’m at the hotels. Every time I use it, it seems to dry out my skin too much.
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I've never purchased liquid soap unless it contained crushed pumice. Bar soap all the way!

Rich
 
I wish somebody would come tp my house....our Costco hasn't had it in stock and we never seem to hit the tp lottery at the food stores. Every time it's in stock, somebody facebooks it and the shelves clear in about ten minutes.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
I wish somebody would come tp my house....our Costco hasn't had it in stock and we never seem to hit the tp lottery at the food stores. Every time it's in stock, somebody facebooks it and the shelves clear in about ten minutes.
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I hit Sams Club once a month....last time I was there the whole back isle was pallets of TP. It's been a few weeks since I've been out....so maybe they're out. I also shop at the open on Wednesdays. I think that day is the best day to see fully stocked shelves....and some things sell out with in hours (like cleaning supplies).
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
I hit Sams Club once a month....last time I was there the whole back isle was pallets of TP. It's been a few weeks since I've been out....so maybe they're out. I also shop at the open on Wednesdays. I think that day is the best day to see fully stocked shelves....and some things sell out with in hours (like cleaning supplies).
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WSJ ran a story on the cleaning stuff including Clorox wipes today. Clorox has already upped production 40% which is pretty amazing really.

They say demand went up so much they don’t expect their supply chain and even higher production to start to catch up until mid-summer.

Other disinfectant makers asked said similar.

I’ve never worked anywhere that production could go up 40% without some significant “heroics” including overtime and such. Pretty impressive number really.

Suddenly have 320 million people who want to actually clean things as well as clean them often. Massive demand bump for the cleaning product stuff. Keeps stock low until they can increase production further.

TP is weirder. That seems to be more regional and there’s not as much demand side reason for the whipsawing of the supply chain, other than the folks not going at work who are staying home. LOL.

The cleaning supply thing also indicates that some of y’all was nassssty. Hahahah.
 
A lot of businesses have been doing wipe-downs every so many hours: hand rails, light switches, doorknobs, countertops, and pretty much anything that’s a common contact point. That takes supplies. If you can find bleach, you can make your own solution, then use a shop rag. I suspect a lot of people are doing a lot of wipe downs at home or when they go out somewhere. So I can see a legitimate run on those supplies other than by hoarders. Anyone that’s ever bought Clorox wipes knows they dry out quickly once you open the package, they last a little longer unopened on the shelf.
 
The other day, Safeway had tons of gallon jugs of bleach. I don't use it so much for cleaning, but for bleaching the sand dollars I find at the beach...
 
denverpilot said:
WSJ ran a story on the cleaning stuff including Clorox wipes today. Clorox has already upped production 40% which is pretty amazing really.

They say demand went up so much they don’t expect their supply chain and even higher production to start to catch up until mid-summer.

Other disinfectant makers asked said similar.

I’ve never worked anywhere that production could go up 40% without some significant “heroics” including overtime and such. Pretty impressive number really.

Suddenly have 320 million people who want to actually clean things as well as clean them often. Massive demand bump for the cleaning product stuff. Keeps stock low until they can increase production further.

TP is weirder. That seems to be more regional and there’s not as much demand side reason for the whipsawing of the supply chain, other than the folks not going at work who are staying home. LOL.

The cleaning supply thing also indicates that some of y’all was nassssty. Hahahah.
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They could have changed over equipment that was running similar products to run the Clorox wipes instead. The chemicals shouldn't be that big of a deal to increase production as long as you have the raw materials. I'd think the bigger hurdle is packaging constraints.
 
SoonerAviator said:
They could have changed over equipment that was running similar products to run the Clorox wipes instead. The chemicals shouldn't be that big of a deal to increase production as long as you have the raw materials. I'd think the bigger hurdle is packaging constraints.
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It's all about 'lean' and 'JIT'. Keep as little safety stock as possible - both in manufacturing and packaging. A lot of these cleaning supply companies shifted from shipping individual cases of product to suppliers to pallets (40+ cases per pallet) of product overnight. That kind of outflow will consume the limited amount of safety stock you have in a heartbeat. The first week of the mass lock-downs, I drove past the Clorox DC up the road and there were trucks (both inbound and outbound) backed up almost a mile down the road waiting to get in. Drove by a week later and it was business as usual there. Haven't been by there since then to see what a 'normal' day looks like now.
 
CJones said:
It's all about 'lean' and 'JIT'. Keep as little safety stock as possible - both in manufacturing and packaging. A lot of these cleaning supply companies shifted from shipping individual cases of product to suppliers to pallets (40+ cases per pallet) of product overnight. That kind of outflow will consume the limited amount of safety stock you have in a heartbeat. The first week of the mass lock-downs, I drove past the Clorox DC up the road and there were trucks (both inbound and outbound) backed up almost a mile down the road waiting to get in. Drove by a week later and it was business as usual there. Haven't been by there since then to see what a 'normal' day looks like now.
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Right, shifting over so few chemical production lines might not be a big deal (could be done within a week if there's no special tooling that needs to be made). Coating lines could be tougher unless they had excess capacity there and only needed headcount to operate it.

The suppliers for packaging would be the biggest hurdle, but they may have a similar situation where other product lines went dead and left excess capacity available to pick up the slack for Clorox bottles, etc. Again, machine conversion costs and specialized tooling/molds could be the biggest challenges in order to shift available capacity over. It's also why you generally keep 2-3 qualified suppliers for your main materials in order to help squeeze or extra capacity when one falters.

Wouldn't expect any modern manufacturer to keep tons of cash tied up in safety stock and taking up precious warehouse floorspace.
 
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