An Anniversary I Never Thought I'd See: Toilet Roll Day!

I shouldn't be surprised that there is a dedicated Toilet Roll Day トイレットロールの日 in Japan, but it is definitely among one of the more random anniversaries in the long list of official annual commemorations in Japan. 

The commemorative day was established by Nippon Paper Crecia Co., Ltd., a company known for household paper products such as Kleenex and Scottie. They chose October 11th, 10/11, for the anniversary as they could play with it to represent toilet roll; "TO (10) ilet ro ll (ii)".  The purpose of the anniversary is to encourage people to take a moment to appreciate an item that is so common we rarely thing about it!

A crazy fact that I learned through this commemoration is that toilet rolls are only around for just over 100 years! Early domestically produced toilet rolls appeared in 1924, although they were mainly used on ocean liners and in luxury hotels rather than in ordinary homes. That fact alone has made me appreciate toilet rolls more!