Paper Trail -- Exploring The World Of Toilet-Seat Covers

AS I RECALL, THE LAST TIME WE WENT through budget cutbacks here at The Times, the bar soap disappeared from the restrooms, the troops balked at relying on that white powdered stuff, and little motel soaps started popping up on sinks throughout the building. Some more bizarre consequences turned up in "Adam," the comic strip by Brian Basset, the Times' editorial cartoonist. (The one showing employees wearing their own soap-on-a-rope still is posted in one newsroom john.)

All that probably prompted this suggestion with the latest round of cost-effective introspection: "What about paper toilet-seat covers? Do those things really do any good?"

Well?

"I checked with epidemiology before calling you back, just to be sure," said Sharon Greenman, environmental health services supervisor with the Seattle/King County Department of Public Health. "She agreed with what I thought, which is that they probably do absolutely no good whatsoever other than psychological." I'm pretty sure she meant the toilet-seat covers, not epidemiology.

If there were any bacteria on a toilet seat, Greenman said, it would survive only in moisture. And moisture goes right through those paper seat covers.

"Not to mention the flap in the middle that drops down into the toilet bowl, which could act like a wick and bring up whatever bacteria there may be in the bowl."

There's no such thing as zero risk without the covers, but it's very unlikely. "Let's say somebody had herpes," Greenman said. "First, their herpes would have to be active, then the person would have to leave some organisms, then you'd have to go in immediately after that person, then you'd have to have a cut or open sore for transmission to happen."

So seat covers, apparently, are mainly leftovers from the days when people believed you could catch diseases from toilet seats.

"It's like people used to believe they should cool hot food before refrigerating it, so they wouldn't spoil the milk," Greenman said. "That was true in the days of iceboxes, because you'd melt the ice. But it's not true with today's mechanical refrigeration."

Nevertheless, most mothers have a vast repertoire for those seat-cover-less moments, from piecing one together from toilet paper, to sitting on your hands ("You can always wash your hands," one mom said) to the ever-popular "hovering" technique, which is how mothers kept their legs strong.

Most people apparently use seat covers because they make them feel more at ease. This is one of the two major selling points for the James River Corp. of Richmond, Va., which has a big mill in Camas, Clark County. The paper-products company (which bought Crown Zellerbach) is this country's largest manufacturer of seat covers, but probably is better known for Dixie cups and Brawny paper towels.

James River spokesman Lyle McGlothlin makes no claims about seat covers' protection from disease. But he believes (of course) that a business that provides seat covers is sending a message about its commitment to sanitation.

"And seat covers let you know if there's water on the seat," McGlothlin said, chuckling. "No surprises there, anyway."

What was surprising was that seat covers, which were invented in L.A. in the '30s, are mainly a West Coast thing. "About half the seat covers in the world," he said, "are sold in Southern California." There's probably a reason for that, but I won't speculate. "We've tried to pass them out on street corners in New York to people who look like secretaries." (And I'll let that pass.)

McGlothlin, who used to work in seat-cover market development, also shared that there are many shapes, sizes and folds, from the standard bi-fold to the airline quarter-fold to the pocketpack 16-fold. A competitor makes a plastic version, which is more effective but more expensive. The paper ones cost about a penny each.

"And have you heard all the nicknames for them?" he asked. But as they came to mind, he realized he couldn't repeat any of them for print, except "gaskets" and "Texas T-shirts." "That's for Aggies," he said.

In any case, it seems like fewer and fewer people use seat covers. Maybe they could be cut out of the budget.

"But if nobody's using them," Greenman said, "you probably won't save that much money."

Dare I say it? I guess this means we should just go ahead - and spend a penny.

Molly Martin is assistant editor of Pacific.