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Lefty Economics and Paper Towels
The government, always keen to save some of your tax dollars, has done something intriguing at my workplace. Recently, the janitorial contractors have been busy replacing the old paper towel dispensers in bathrooms with new fancy dispensers that magically spit out dead trees at the wave of a hand. Unlike the old dispensers – where people would just grab a wad of towels, dry their hands, and throw away many unused pieces – the new ones provide only what is needed. Or so it would seem.
These technological marvels of dispensation can be set to produce a specific amount of paper per wave of hand. In one building where I work, the janitor did the smart thing and set the length to an adequate level, about 12 inches. This was all fine and dandy until some manager came along and determined that the machine functioned too efficiently, so he limited the distribution by a couple of inches. Now the paper dispensed is inadequate to perform the job, so everyone waves their hand a second time in front of the sensor for a second towel. In the hope of saving two inches of paper per use, this ignoramus managed to raise the average use to 20 inches.
This is, to me, a perfect example of the left’s view of economics: intentions matter, results be damned.
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I find I always enjoy a tale well told. Your explanation is one of those well told tales. Will it reach the people that set the length of the paper towels? One suspect that a great many of them already know of the inadequacy of what they are doing, and they do it anyway. One also suspects that a great many of the people who put them in office have no regard for the length of the paper towels that are being dispensed and, hence, nothing will change.
This example is a perfect small scale illustration.
The little examples are everywhere if we look. Does pointing them out help our cause, or does it just make us look like whiners?
This is an example I will use when talking about unintended consequences. It illustrates the point without being offensive to anyone’s deeply held beliefs. I’ll use it to segue into larger examples of the same.
That’s the key: If there’s a feedback mechanism that lets the manager know that this has resulted in more towel wastage — and if it’s then corrected — no harm done. It’s not silly to experiment to see what the ideal length is, and I’m sure there is one.
The idiocy kicks in if the manager is unable to correct the mistake, either because he never learns of this, or because he has to follow a rule that’s inapplicable to this environment.
If I were the manager, I’d ask an expert before changing the setting. Who would the expert be? Why, the janitor. Specifically, the janitor who cleans that bathroom, regularly.
Sometime in the last, maybe, twenty years (ah, maybe it’s thirty), the thickness of paper towels went down. Now, I use about twice as many sheets as I used to use. I long ago explained it to myself in a little internal story where tree-hugging activists, over time, nudged Congress or some part of the vast regulatory state to change regulations of towel producers so they’re not allowed to make thick towels — or some such.
Now, either the same amount of paper is used, or perhaps more.
The same thing has been going on with toilet flushes since Congress outlawed the larger tanks in about 1992.
There’s kind of a mindset here that is almost moralistic. So long as the manager has done his part to force savings he is no longer responsible for the outcome if people simply will not comply with his great plans. Very much a command economy sort of thing. Didn’t Nixon act this way with price controls? (Asking honestly, I don’t know much of that period of history.)
Should have done a hot air dryer instead and saved the recurrent cost.
Wiring the power in would have been too much up front cost.
The wasteful paper towels should be replaced by law with hot air blowers that are more sanitary and are great at drying your face.
Furthering the waste, many of these”automatic” dispensers run on batteries. Even assuming you’re using rechargeables, you can imagine the cost increase of operating your equipment.
There’s also the cost of get towels specifically designed for your dispenser. You now are buying from somebody with a monopoly on supply.
Am I stretching your analogy a bit too far?
Back in the ’90’s, my super informed us that NY Law required his replacing our toilet with a “more efficient” model.
While our “inefficient” model had never required more than a single flush, the “new and improved” tank often took anywhere from 2-4 flushes, for even the most uneventful visits to the loo. And the toilets at my much-touted “Green” building at work “work” the same way.
Funny, I’ve googled my heart out but I can’t seem to find a single word, online, proving to me that the water conservation boon predicted back then by the LFT
fasci– – sorry, fans, ever came to pass.You’d think they’d be eager to let us know how right they were . . . if they were.
Also, hot air driers suck.
And speaking of unintended consequences…
I keep a bucket in the shower, sometimes it is in the way sort of but it has a purpose. After a shower the bucket is full, then when I flush the toilet later, I grab the bucket and pour it in fast. This way I don’t have to flush two or three or four times because the low flow toilet doesn’t work. The are ways to adapt to the brave new world.
Wow. I’ve done that when the water was turned off, now and then, but somehow it never occurred to me to just do it as a matter of course. Smart.
I’m guessing I’ll meet with resistance to implementing this system at the office, though.
Not true!! They’ve been shown to be worse at spreading germs, as they pull the air up off the floor — of a public restroom — and deposit the little microbial mothers on your hands! Or, in your case, on your face (Dude??).
I’ve taught my girls to never, ever use restroom air dryers. If there are no towels available (which, incidentally, should also be used to open the restroom door before exiting), we shake the excess water from our hands and pat them on our pants. No harm, no foul.
Today’s lesson from one of Ricochet’s own germaphobes (I know I’m not alone, but I won’t name names).
Great post, KP. Nail head? Meet hammer.
Exactly!
At our office, the toilets are set to give a quick burst that gets like 75% of whatever is there. On the one hand, if you sprinkled a tablespoon of sawdust in a clean toilet bowl, only 75% would get flushed. On the other hand, 75% of a large load would go down.
Thus, three or four flushes are required no matter what.
It is not a situtaion where one flush works for small loads.
The false economy (save by using smaller towels, but with the result that more towels are used so that total use of towels is increased) is a large entity problem, not just a government problem.
But, the incentive of the large commercial entity to make a profit provides at least some likelihood that the false economy setups will eventually get corrected. The problem with government is that the incentives (appearances matter more than actual efficiency, inputs matter more than outputs, intentions matter more than results, etc.) make it less likely that a false economy setup will be corrected when a government is involved.
And, we always run the risk that the government will impose their false economy setup on the rest of us (see the above comments about toilets, and we’re about to see it on dishwashers).
Oh my GAWD!!!! What are you SAYING TO ME???! I’ve never heard this, before. I’ll never be able to “unknow” it. I’m actually not a germaphobe, and yet I’m so creeped out, right now . . .
On a side note – – another innovation in the Deathstar bathrooms, of late, was to install a motion-activated hand sanitizer machine on the wall right over the counter. The very stretch of counter where I was accustomed to setting down a bag, if I hit the ladies on my way out for the day.
Finally trained myself to stop setting things there but until I did, I had the cleanest pocketbook EVER!
This.
You’re doing it wrong. Here is a TED presenter imparting the one true way to dry your hands.
I think the TED crowd would be fine if the dispensers were set for a half piece of towel and one, and only one, to a customer.
I don’t have it in me to look for the follow-up TED talk on toilet paper usage.
I had to look it up. Turns out to be true, this time. I generally don’t trust today’s folk wisdom on healthy lifestyles, but I’m a curmudgeon, and I believe you fight like you train, and that includes your immune system.
And for this, you joined Ricochet.
I can’t let my sister find out about this. She’s a total germaphobe and uber-planner. She’ll start carrying her own personal packet of individually wrapped and sealed one-time-use paper towels, cut to the perfect size for optimal drying sans waste, I just know it.
Meanwhile, I’ll be following her out of rest stops on our road trip next month, casually patting my damp hands on my skirt . . .
Well, if you’re serious about immune system training, you could get down and lick the floor… of a public restroom!
/sorry, couldn’t resist. I just think this is another example of where technological “advancement” is actually the opposite. If paper towels were good enough for our ancestors…
Totally derailed this thread. So sorry — back to left-wing idiocy.
Plus (only loosely related), Dave Barry pointed out in one of his important pieces the aeration that sprays tiny particles of toilet spew into the air when you flush with the lid up (or, in every public restroom, without the lid). That’s why I finesse the auto-flushers so I’m not standing right over them when they go off. You ought to see the elaborate dance I’ve devised.
That’s actually how I view most of today’s folklore concerning health. Just the other day an acquaintance from church posted on facebook about having an essential oils party to learn more about how they work. I restrained myself from simply linking a Mayo Clinic article on the placebo effect.