Some wet wipes marketed as “flushable” or biodegradable take months to decompose and, if you flush them down the toilet, quickly join with fat, oil and grease to create large pipe-blocking objects.
Source: Wipes. To Flush Or Not To Flush? @ Lanes for Drains
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- Cleaning wipes ‘blocking drains’ @ BBC News
Sarah McMath, head of asset planning for Thames Water, says pipes blocked by wet wipes cost the company around £12m every year. “The issue is that we don’t agree on what is the definition of flushable. We set up a series of tests to look at what really is flushable and only toilet paper passed that test. But the wet wipe industry is more lenient about what it describes as flushable.”
image: Make your own wipes: Baby wipes, make-up removing wipes, and cleaning wipes by Abi Porter under Creative Commons license
