“Flushable” wipes are ruining sewage plants

Wipes and other products that get flushed down the toilet cause millions of dollars in problems for cities like New York. They clog up the machinery at sewage plants like the Wards Island Wastewater Treatment Plant. The Verge Science video team went to see the damage wipes can do, and got up close and personal with the bits of fabric that cost cities millions and millions of dollars each year to manage.

[VergeScience]

What products do you actually wish were flushable by industry standards?

[GreenAppelPie]

I don’t understand why a commercial group was able to label products as flushable in the first place. Just another example of private industry fleecing taxpayers who ultimately pay the bill.

[drewofearth]

This is an example of quality reporting. Good stuff, Verge.

[rp]

I worked at WRc, the company that grades toilet paper and wipes for "Fine to Flush" in the UK. Let's just say there's a reason that I left (last month).

[Ntmoffi]

I flush sewer lines and manholes all the time. You should see the stuff that people flush down their toilets. Basically it's out of sight out of mind for them. These wipes clog up things ALL the time. I always call them 'dryer sheets' when I'm handling the issue.

[noisycarlos]

I was sad when I learned this was a problem because I used to be a big user of them.
They're great from a user's point of view, but bad for everyone else, so I stopped and got a Fohm device which puts foam into regular toilet paper to dampen it just enough. It's much better than just TP, but not as good as the wipes, so now I'm looking into one of those bidets that install on the toilet.
I hope they get the manufacturers to the higher flushability standard.

[Dawt_Calm]

"Flushable" wipes play havoc with your septic systems too. Don't know how many people I've seen had their septic tanks and/or leeching fields re-worked because "flushable" wipes have filled them and won't dissolve. It's very costly for a homeowner.

[naibafYT]

After my vacation in Japan I never understood why western countries haven't adapted Japanese-like toilets..

[akashrao]

Just install a bidet and reduce toilet paper usage. It's hygienic.

[capivara]

Me, who lives in a country where 46% of people, including me, don't have access to sewer:

[Selyucida]

I wish there were info of all these so readily available in my third world country and native language. I end up learning everything through how it is in "the states"

[JDelta]

I hope sooner than later that these companies will start being more forthcoming about the labels on their products. The marketing departments aren't helping the environment much either.

[makatron]

So you're telling me that an industry created their own certification just so they can pass as "flushable" with bare minimum requirements.
*=pretends to be shocked=*

[CBB]

One idea is to not allow company's to market this stuff as "flushable ". There should be strong printed warnings on the packaging that is easily seen. God forbid a company miss out on profits and this is why regulation and oversight is needed in the corporate world especially. Very informative video, makes me angry that this is a fine example of company's not being environmentally responsible at all and the government not holding them accountable.

[Smitica]

I work for a city where the sewer lines take about 45 minutes to make it to the treatment plant. In that span, sometimes the water goes thru multiple lift stations before reaching the main plant. They break down somewhat along the way, then reform fibers when that minimum rpm to break it up isn't achieved. Pumps then gather the reformed wipes and catch on the spinning blades that moves the water, causing a backup, which continues to collect more, you can easily burn out a motor on a pump which can back up plumbing in houses actually costs taxpayers more in the long term. I'm glad this video was created, its good info to put out there when your neighbor might be someone causing a backup of sewage, in your basement.

[maninredhelm]

I know the message here is not to flush any of these products, but it's frustrating that neither the video nor the original study it's based on will name the product that performed much better than the rest (2 were cited as partial dissolving, but in the official report "product #57" was clearly superior to "product #51"). If you drive up demand for the better dissolving product, others will compete to outperform it in this category, and maybe then we'll get them all engineered to an acceptably dissolvable level. Right now they're only competing on comfort and price, because buyers have no idea how they differ in "dissolvability."

[jamesodell]

Macomb County Michigan (just outside of Detroit) in May 2020 filed a lawsuit to require the manufacturers to change their labeling of wipes because of the the problems they create in waste water treatment plants.

[tnlwithtrixiekat]

Plumbers hate flushable wipes. That’s all you need to know.

[bobbib]

'Wipes' here means 'toilet paper' right? We don't even use toilet paper in my country, just spray it with water 😂

[stagnantfox]

To anyone who flushes ANYTHING other than toilet paper: I hope you enjoy paying high taxes. Because it's becoming a problem to a point that it needs higher tax funds.