FULL STORY: If you finally made it through that mountain of toilet paper you stockpiled during the pandemic . . . time to stock up again.
People are panic-buying toilet paper because of the big port strike. And the hoarding is even dumber this time.
Dockworkers on the East Coast and Gulf Coast walked off the job when their contract expired on Tuesday. They’re looking for better pay and more protections against job automation. So nothing’s coming in through those ports.
Americans who are still traumatized by the Great T.P. Shortage of 2020 rushed to stores like Costco and Walmart this week, and cleared them out. Photos of empty shelves have been trending again on social. (Like here, here, and here.)
But it turns out there’s no reason to stock up on bathroom tissue, because we don’t really import much of it from overseas. Around 90% of the toilet paper we use is American-made.
The other 10% largely comes from Canada and Mexico. So it’s mostly brought in on trains and trucks, not on boats.
Experts say there’s no need to hoard anything at this point. Suppliers have known the port strike was coming for months, so they stocked up for it.
But if it does drag on, one thing that could be affected is maybe the least hoardable product you can think of . . . bananas.
Ports affected by the strike handle about 75% of America’s banana supply.
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