Tilghman convenes toilet paper task force

The decision came in response to 1,438 starving students who instituted a hunger strike last week when the University failed to acknowledge their petition to switch to two-ply toilet paper. Jack Lindeman ’11, president of Two-Ply Tigers (TP Tigers), vowed that the group would eat no food until the University improves the quality of its toilet paper, though it instituted a rite of stealing and eating one case of the University’s current toilet paper in front of Nassau Hall every day at noon.

“Over the past two-and-a-half years, I have had one major complaint about Princeton. That is the quality of toilet paper,” said Lindeman, who will serve as the student chairman of the task force.

University sustainability manager Shana Weber, who will chair the task force together with Lindeman, said that after witnessing the dedication of TP Tigers, she had reconsidered her initial stance on the matter.

After one-ply panic ensued in the latest USG election, Weber said she could no longer ignore the voice of the people.

“[The University’s current toilet paper choice] speaks to where Princeton’s priorities are: service to the nation and all nations,” Weber said in an e-mail to The Daily Princetonian last year, praising the sustainability advantages of using one-ply tissue.

University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt ’96 explained that the University currently purchases a “mid-level toilet tissue” that is higher in quality than the most basic commercially available products.

A move to two-ply tissue, she added, would make little financial or environmental sense.

“Our research has shown a change in products would result in increased costs in the tens of thousands of dollars and increased use of raw materials used to manufacture a two-ply toilet tissue, as two-ply toilet tissue almost invariably doubles the amount of use,” Cliatt said. “Both the additional cost and additional use of paper run counter to the University’s position on conservative budgeting and sustainable operations.”

Lindeman and Brian Edwards ’11, whose vocal outrage over the tissue issue in their failed USG campaigns led to their being chosen as student members of the task force, hailed the measure as an opportunity to subvert the stratified social hierarchy fostered by one-ply toilet paper.

“I want to change the USG from what seems like this Princeton oligarchy and make it more accessible to the average Princeton student,” Lindeman said, adding that this is an important issue that has been “rubbing the student body the wrong way.”

“Toilet paper was just sort of ... a poster child issue for the fact that the USG can be an organization that just puts on study breaks, or it can work on [having a] substantial impact on a daily basis,” Edwards said.

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