Unless you can get yourself onto a serious Survivorman wavelength, pooping in the woods is pretty miserable. I love hanging out around the fire; I don’t mind sleeping in a tent; I loathe trudging off into the woods to do my business armed only with a smushed, semi-damp roll of toilet paper. It’s the ultimate indignity. This concept at least mitigates some of that.

The waterproof toilet paper container and dispenser, cleverly named Nature Calls, was created by a group of students at the Alberta College of Art and Design. Their assignment was to create something of social or economic value using a two-liter plastic bottle. “We’ve all been in various situations where having dry toilet paper was important, so the idea came naturally to us,” says Janet Molchanko, who designed the product, along with Amy Pon, Sarah Jensen and Morgan Smith. Using half of their bottle, a freezer bag, some reflective tape, and a bit of twine, the group made it a reality.





To keep waste to a minimum, they designed the caddy to be reusable. Campers can easily swap in new rolls via the zippered plastic bag. There’s a carabiner for attaching it to a backpack, or, if you’re really serious about creating a more civilized experience, for clipping it to a tree, turning it into a handy hanging dispenser. “We also added a small LED light for those nighttime trips!” Molchanko adds, which has to be the most enthusiastically anyone’s ever talked about that most perilous after-dark excursion.

The pouch offers some 2,000 square inches of toilet paper storage space–more than most existing products, the group found, which top out at around 800. That’s key. The only way that whole situation gets worse is when you run out.

[Hat tip: Knstrct]