Clark Howard

Can you really save money with tubeless toilet paper?

Toilet paper is something people tend to be really particular about.

Is tubeless toilet paper a bargain?

During a recent trip to Dollar Tree, Clark.com noticed something we’d never seen before — tube-free toilet paper.

It turns out some people favor tube-free rolls — which don’t include the cardboard tube in the middle — because it helps them save green…as in trees!

Americans throw away or recycle more than 17 billion toilet paper tubes each year, according to Scott Brand.

The company offers an online calculator to help you understand how your family can cut down on waste if you're willing to switch to tube-free rolls.

After playing around with the easy-to-use calculator, we discovered that a typical family with one adult male and two children will use more than 13,000 tubes over a lifetime. That’s enough tubes to build a baby grand piano!

Comparing square footage of toilet paper

Dollar Tree sells two double rolls of Scott’s tube-free for $1. But is that a deal compared to their other offerings?

We did a unit price comparison to find out…

Product Thickness Square feet
Scott’s tube-less (2 pack double rolls) – not available online 1-ply sheets 48.6 square feet
The Home Store Bathroom tissue 4-roll bonus pack 2-ply sheets 122.2 sq. ft.
Charmin Essentials Strong Mega Rolls (4 rolls) 1-ply sheets 49.1 sq. ft.
The Home Store 1-Ply Bath Tissue, 1250-sheet Rolls 1-ply sheets 131.7 sq. ft.

Because each product has a base price of $1, we’re just comparing the square footage of the paper you get in the package.

On that front, Scott’s tube-less fails miserably, with the least amount of square feet for your dollar. The clear winner is The Home Store 1-Ply Bath Tissue, 1250-sheet Rolls.

Now, you could make the argument that the Home Store 4-pack offers a better value because it’s two-ply instead of 1-ply and you only get 9 fewer sq. ft. vs. the 1250-sheet roll.

But the “bottom” line here is that we’ll leave that to your discretion. If you can tolerate toilet paper that may not be the softest in the world, by all means, go for it!

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