How Much Loo Roll Do We Use in a Lifetime?

We all need to find time to use the loo. While the frequency of our movements can vary from three times a week to three times a day, everyone will need to use the bathroom.

While many countries, including most of Asia and Continental Europe, rely on bidets for cleanliness, Britain has used the tried and trusted toilet paper since the 1880s. But how much of it do people use in a lifetime?

At Homecure, we know that flushing too much moist paper can lead to unfortunate toilet blockages, quickly leading to embarrassing situations if others are around. But how much loo roll does the average person actually use? We’ve conducted a survey to find out how much toilet paper people use in a day and over a lifetime.

Key findings

• In a lifetime, the average person will use 3,961 rolls of toilet paper — that’s equivalent to 54 miles, the length of more than 887 football pitches, or roughly twice the length of a Marathon.
• The UK uses almost two billion sheets of toilet paper daily – or 9.85 million rolls.
• Women use more toilet rolls on average than men, with over 1 million sheets in a lifetime used by women, and 761,000 for men.
• Almost a quarter of people (35.8%) said they use less toilet paper in 2024 to save money.
• Vegans (3,200.4 lifetime rolls) are the most efficient with toilet paper compared to those with no dietary restrictions (3,519 lifetime rolls).

The Average Person Will Use 3,647 Loo Rolls in their Life

As of 2022, the average life expectancy in the UK was 78.6 years for men, and 82.6 for women. Based on this, we can predict that the average person would use a grand total of 792,287 sheets of toilet roll in their lifetime—equivalent to 3,961 rolls spanning a distance of 59.1 miles – the length of over two Marathons or more than 900 football pitches!

Over the course of their combined lifetimes, the UK’s population will use more than 269 billion loo rolls. With over 6.4 billion km of paper, you would have enough paper to cover the distance of 8,324 round trips to the moon.

How Much Toilet Paper Does the Average Person Use?

We asked our survey participants to tell us how much loo roll they use on average when they use the bathroom. We also asked them about various factors, such as specific diets, alcohol consumption and if they drink tea and coffee to see what impact this had on toilet paper usage.

Taking into account all factors, we found that people use an average of twenty-nine sheets of toilet roll per person each day. Nineteen of these will be used for wiping after a bowel movement, while 10 more will be used after a wee.

We also found that roughly 1 in 3 people are buying less toilet paper to save money. 35.8% of respondents told us that they are wiping less to get more from their rolls. With the cost of toilet roll rising by more than 13% in 2023, it’s clear that people are increasingly conscious of the value of each wipe. For hygiene purposes, it’s important to make sure you’re using enough toilet paper; consider shopping around for cheaper non-branded options if you’re trying to save money on toilet roll.

Women Use More Toilet Paper than Men

Our study also found a difference between the amount of toilet paper men and women use. On average, women use more toilet rolls in a lifetime with 5,013 rolls, compared to 3,807 for men.

This is likely down to the fact that women will typically use more toilet roll for a wee. 20% of men said they don’t use any paper when they do a wee, compared with only 1% of women who said they didn’t use any for a wee.

Vegans Use Less Toilet Paper than Vegetarians

Our survey also shows that different diets can impact how much toilet paper people use. Those with no restrictions in their diets will use 52.5 miles of toilet paper over their lifetime, while vegetarians use the most at 58 miles worth.

By contrast, vegans are eco-friendly in more ways than one, using less loo roll than vegetarians and those who only eat meat. Over a lifetime, we estimate that a vegan will use 3,200 loo rolls; this is 60 fewer than meat-only eaters and 686 fewer than vegetarians.

Brits Use an Estimated 9.85 Million Toilet Rolls per Day

So how does this stack up when we take the UK’s entire population into account? According to Worldometer, which takes into account up-to-date UN figures, Britain’s population sits at 67,956,767 (as of June 24th, 2024).

Based on this figure, we can estimate that the UK population uses approximately 1.97 billion sheets of toilet roll each day—equivalent to 9.85 million rolls. If you were to roll each one out, the amount of toilet roll would be equivalent to more than 146,600 miles—enough to circle the diameter of the Earth more than 18 times!

Methodology

Between 6/14/2024 and 6/17/2024, a total of 1,025 adults were surveyed on their bathroom habits. We asked them how much toilet roll they use for both for passing urine and bowel movements. We then broke down the responses based on their consumption habits and medical conditions.

To calculate the lifetime use of toilet roll and the distance comparisons, we used 2021 Census data from the Office for National Statistics, giving us an average lifespan of 78.85 years. We then subtracted the average time for an infant to be fully potty-trained (4 years), giving us a working lifetime average of 74.85 years.

For the distances, we assumed the regulation length of one sheet of toilet roll (12cm) and the average number of sheets in a roll of toilet paper based on popular UK brands such as Andrex, Bamboo and Cushelle.