Are You Ready for Tubeless Toilet Paper?

Kimberly Clark is rolling out (pardon the pun) a new and innovative roll of toilet paper that has no cardboard tube, according to a story in today's USA Today. That's right. It's just a hole in the roll where you can stick your plastic or metal spindle.

According to Kimberly Clark, this is the biggest innovation and change in its 100-year toilet roll history. As you may know, Kimberly-Clark is one of the world's biggest makers of household paper products including toilet paper.

It's going to begin testing what are going to be branded "Scott Naturals Tube-Free" toilet paper at Walmart and Sam's Club stores throughout the Northeast.

If sales take off, it may introduce the line nationally and then globally. It might even consider adapting the technology into its paper towel brands. They have tubes too.

The main difference is the holes in the rolls won't be perfectly round. But they will still fit over toilet paper spindles. Kimberly Clark promises that even the last piece of toilet paper will be usable.

What does this mean for the $9 billion toilet paper market? Kimberly Clark thinks it will appeal to more people because of the "green" halo effect. Some 17 billion toilet paper tubes are produced each year and the U.S. alone accounts for 160 million pounds of tube trash since most people just throw away used tubes rather than recycle them.
 Kimberly-Clark estimates that those tubes could stretch more than a million miles placed end-to-end. The company won't disclose the tubeless technology except to say it's a special winding process. A similar process is used on tissues the company sells to businesses but not to consumers.

An environmentalist, Darby Hoover of the Natural Resources Defense Council, says she hopes other toilet tissue makers follow Kimberly-Clark's lead.