People are panic-buying toilet paper because of the port strike

(CNN) — Toilet paper shortages in stores across America are giving folks nightmarish reminders of the pandemic era. But the lack of toilet paper isn’t a direct result of a major port strike Tuesday. It’s because of panic buying.

Reports of shortages filled social media Tuesday, showing empty shelves where toilet paper and, to a lesser extent, paper towels were supposed to be.

“They cleaned out the toilet paper at my local Walmart in Virginia. Toilet paper hoarding 2.0!,” wrote one person in a post on X, along with a photo of empty shelves.

“Shelves at Costco & Target running low or out of paper towels in Monmouth County NJ,” posted another X user. “Seeing people buying TP & water too in reax to port strike. Costco employee told me they were sold out of TP/paper towels this am.”

But the strike at ports from Maine to Texas will have absolutely zero impact on the supply of these products.

The overwhelming majority — more than 90% by some estimates — of US toilet paper consumption comes from domestic factories. Most of the rest comes from Canada and Mexico, which means it most likely arrives by rail or truck, not ship.

A glut of toilet paper

The American Forest and Paper Association, the trade group representing paper manufacturers, expressed concerns about the impact that the port strike could have on its members. But it cited the risk to its exports to foreign markets being cut off by the strike. Not imports.

If anything, the strike could result in a glut of toilet paper. Not a shortage.

But that didn’t stop the mob psychology of people rushing to stock up out of fear of a shortage, fed by bad memories of shortages and limitations on purchases that occurred in 2020 during the pandemic.

There will likely be some shortages caused by the port strike, but mostly for perishable goods for which the US market depends on imports. Item one is bananas.

Imports account for nearly 100% of the US supply of bananas, America’s most popular fruit by volume, and more than half of banana imports come in through the ports being struck as of early Tuesday morning, according to data from the American Farm Bureau. More than a quarter of the imports come in through just one port in Wilmington, Delaware.

Those bananas have a short shelf life. It’s only a couple of weeks between when they are cut from a banana tree to when they appear on grocery shelves, and it’s less than two weeks after that they turn brown or black on your kitchen counter. So, shippers weren’t able to ship a large volume in advance of the strike.

Toilet paper is the opposite of a perishable good. Any toilet paper hoarded today will last until the next round of panic buying, even it happens years from now. Almost none of it moved through the ports that are shut today.