The retail TP shortage may be real and due to the shift in where we poop

I have, several times, heard the reasonable-sounding theory that America's at work pooping minimized the need for THAT MUCH retail toilet paper. Purportedly there are tons and tons of business-grade TP piling up unused.

What Everyones Getting Wrong About the Toilet Paper Shortage

Theres another, entirely logical explanation for why stores have run out of toilet paper one that has gone oddly overlooked in the vast majority of media coverage. It has nothing to do with psychology and everything to do with supply chains. It helps to explain why stores are still having trouble keeping it in stock, weeks after they started limiting how many a customer could purchase.

In short, the toilet paper industry is split into two, largely separate markets: commercial and consumer. The pandemic has shifted the lions share of demand to the latter. People actually do need to buy significantly more toilet paper during the pandemic not because theyre making more trips to the bathroom, but because theyre making more of them at home. With some 75% of the U.S. population under stay-at-home orders, Americans are no longer using the restrooms at their workplace, in schools, at restaurants, at hotels, or in airports.