A decade ago I wrote a column accusing the Europeans of making terrible toilet tissue, comparing it to the crinkly, shiny paper stuffed in the toes of new sneakers in the U.S.

I claimed that somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, attendants on European bound flights switched tissue in airline restrooms from the North American standard to the slick, crisp European brands—and that just before that happened, seasoned passengers would make a mad rush to get the last good stuff for a while.

I haven't been to Europe lately and don't know first hand whether Lord Soft Cloud or Fleur de Puff brands are really that much better than they used to be. But I've read that today's European tissues are comparable to if not better than their U.S. counterparts. Come on, now!

I also claimed in that mid-90s column that tissue quality degenerates the farther east you travel, until somewhere in Russia it becomes anti-tissue, and that houses rolled in Russian toilet tissue have been known to disappear. During a three-week tour of the Russian paper industry a few years back, I never saw that happen, but our guide pointed out several vacant lots that once, he said, contained beautiful apartment buildings until victimized by Russian teens. What a waste of tissue, he said.

Matt Coleman, TAPPI Journal publisher at the time and in Russia for the same conference I attended, told me that earlier in the week he had no choice but to use the public restrooms in Red Square, the only westerner known to have done that. He was never the same mentally or spiritually.

I knew Matt well, having worked with him at Pulp & Paper magazine through the 1980s. He had a strong character and a determined personality, which kept him from disappearing until the early 2000s.

The China Miracle. I did not mention China in my earlier column because I had not been there. But a fellow staffer who had, Jim Young, said there was no Chinese word for tissue at the time. He reported, in fact, not having seen any paper at all in China, which is ironic considering that paper is said to have been invented there.

But things apparently have changed in China as well. In gathering data for an article on tissue (pg. 36 of this issue), I was dumbfounded to discover that China is now the world's second largest producer and consumer of tissue papers.

In the past several years, China has added almost 3 million metric tpy (tons per year) of tissue making capacity. Today, that country produces 3.5 million-plus metric tpy, which is more than half of that produced in the U.S. (6.5 million tons last year). In perspective, Europe's 40-plus countries produce only some 7 million tpy collectively.

The per capita demand for tissue paper in China has increased from near zero a decade or so ago to some 2.7 kg today. That's more than in Eastern Europe, Russia, and, in fact, half of the planet. The per capita use of tissue in China is expected to climb to 3.4 kg/year by 2010.

Before you scoff (it's 23 kg in the U.S., and 14 kg in Western Europe), consider this. With its massive, billion-plus, population, just a 1% increase in China's tissue demand raises the domestic production ante by millions of tons and several hundred new paper machines.

A 1% increase in North America or Europe is certainly better that a 1% decrease, but otherwise it's basically meaningless. North Americans would have to start burning tissue paper in their cars to match a 1% increase in China.

What Happened? The sudden birth of a thriving tissue industry in China raises some interesting questions. First, what were they using before? Second, large, modern tissue mills are costly endeavors. Just looking at recent startups, new mills approaching startup, and operations still on the drawing board, we're talking many billions of dollars.

In the 1980s, when Matt Coleman was still engineering editor at Pulp & Paper, the magazine sponsored a series of trade missions to China, involving 10-15 of North America's major suppliers. These missions never amounted to anything, because as it turned out, China had no money to spend. None at all. Zilch.

How did the Chinese paper industry get so filthy rich over night? Our frugal North American paper industry is struggling with four or five billion capital spending dollars these days, while Chinese papermakers are lighting cigars with more than that. Either the Chinese have won the mega-quadrillion lottery, or there might be some valuable lessons to be learned in this country.

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