Butt Wipes Are Bad For Your Plumbing
Sep 09, 2013 22:57
Bad news for those of you who insist on wiping back to front using one of those fancy moist towelettes. According to a report in The Washington Post, these supposedly "flushable" wipes are actually responsible for a 35 per cent jump in jammed pumps and clogged pipes in the Washington area over the last few years.
The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission has reportedly spent over 500 hundred man-hours in the last year just to remove those wipes; and more than $1 million dollars on installing “heavy-duty grinders to shred wipes and other debris before they reach pumps on the way to the treatment plant.”
These “flushable” wipes make up 14 per cent of the $4 billion “pre-moistened” wipe market with sales predicted to grow annually by 6 percent for the next five years. But based on these cases, the Federal Trade Commission is now investigating on whether they can really use the term "flushable" on their packaging.
And if this still hasn't convince you to stick to regular toilet paper, then don't be surprised if your neighbourhood winds up with a 'Fatberg,' which was the name given to a 15-ton “glob of wipes and hardened cooking grease the size of a bus” that was recently discovered clogging the sewers of a neighborhood in London.
The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission has reportedly spent over 500 hundred man-hours in the last year just to remove those wipes; and more than $1 million dollars on installing “heavy-duty grinders to shred wipes and other debris before they reach pumps on the way to the treatment plant.”
These “flushable” wipes make up 14 per cent of the $4 billion “pre-moistened” wipe market with sales predicted to grow annually by 6 percent for the next five years. But based on these cases, the Federal Trade Commission is now investigating on whether they can really use the term "flushable" on their packaging.
And if this still hasn't convince you to stick to regular toilet paper, then don't be surprised if your neighbourhood winds up with a 'Fatberg,' which was the name given to a 15-ton “glob of wipes and hardened cooking grease the size of a bus” that was recently discovered clogging the sewers of a neighborhood in London.
