My dad managed a paper mill when I was a kid and used to bring home a ‘log’ of paper towels sometimes- it was about 6 feet wide and we used them for picnic table cloths. They were usually a funny color because he would grab them from the scrap pile, and they would be the changeover paper from when they switched dye blends for the various brands they produced at the mill. They usually ground them back up into paper again, but they let employees take them home for personal use.

The machine that cuts the logs into rolls of toilet paper or paper towels looks like a bunch of chop saws in a line.