I flush wetwipes down the toilet

Scott Cheg · 12/11/13 - 14:18

Just heard an advert on the radio asking people not to flush cooking fat and wetwipes down the toilet

I flush both.

artnada · 12/11/13 - 14:20

Then don't!

They are one of the biggest reasons why drain pipes get blocked, along with people pouring "hot fat" down the drain that cools to a solid almost immediately!

netcurtains · 12/11/13 - 14:21

You'll clog up your drain eventually and you'll have to fish out all the wet wipes, yuck.

Pitman · 12/11/13 - 14:22

only Dynorod are laughing :cool:

Scott Cheg · 12/11/13 - 14:24

netcurtains wrote: »

You'll clog up your drain eventually and you'll have to fish out all the wet wipes, yuck.

Will the poo and sperm have washed off them by that point?

:o:eek:

SJ_Mental · 12/11/13 - 14:24

I suffered the consequences of people doing this once, I was living in a large house converted into 7 flats, My flat had the garden and the one drain.
One morning the garden and my kitchen were flooded with sewage, Once the blockage was removed it was wet wipes and tampons and cooking fat galore.

Scott Cheg · 12/11/13 - 14:24

SJ_Mental wrote: »

I suffered the consequences of people doing this once, I was living in a large house converted into 7 flats, My flat had the garden and the one drain.
One morning the garden and my kitchen were flooded with sewage, Once the blockage was removed it was wet wipes and tampons and cooking fat galore.

Tampons?! :eek:

[Deleted User] · 12/11/13 - 14:26

SJ_Mental wrote: »

I suffered the consequences of people doing this once, I was living in a large house converted into 7 flats, My flat had the garden and the one drain.
One morning the garden and my kitchen were flooded with sewage, Once the blockage was removed it was wet wipes and tampons and cooking fat galore.

No body parts. Phew!

SJ_Mental · 12/11/13 - 14:26

Scott Cheg wrote: »

Tampons?! :eek:

Yes extremely grim.

:yawn:
/|\

Avidian · 12/11/13 - 14:26

Scott Cheg wrote: »

Just heard an advert on the radio asking people not to flush cooking fat and wetwipes down the toilet

I flush both.

Until recently, I had never heard of "fatbergs" :eek::

"We have 59,000 miles of sewer and fat and wet wipes are the main partners in 'sewer abuse' crime,"

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/06/fatberg-london-sewer-grease-blockage

SJ_Mental · 12/11/13 - 14:27

Yeah_Jackie wrote: »

No body parts. Phew!

Luckily they made it through before it was blocked

[Deleted User] · 12/11/13 - 14:27

I can't help noticing that shops sell special wet wipes for bottom-cleaning purposes. I am not sure how many people use them, but presumably someone does. I am more than happy to put my make up remover in the bin, but I would draw the line at those.

SnrDev · 12/11/13 - 14:29

We once had the neighbours from over the back way asking if our loos were flushing ok as theirs weren't. We lifted the manhole cover and there was the cause - hundreds of those cotton bud stick things had meshed together and created a dam. Whew.

Water companies don't ask you not to throw stuff like that down the sewers for the fun of it. It's almost guaranteed to cause blockages. Blocked sewers aren't fun.

Scott Cheg · 12/11/13 - 14:29

wonkeydonkey wrote: »

I can't help noticing that shops sell special wet wipes for bottom-cleaning purposes. I am not sure how many people use them, but presumably someone does. I am more than happy to put my make up remover in the bin, but I would draw the line at those.

My 3 year old daughter uses the toilet wipes. I'm sure those are flushable!?

Babsefc · 12/11/13 - 14:36

wonkeydonkey wrote: »

I can't help noticing that shops sell special wet wipes for bottom-cleaning purposes. I am not sure how many people use them, but presumably someone does. I am more than happy to put my make up remover in the bin, but I would draw the line at those.

I've recently come back from a holiday in Cyprus - you can't even put toilet paper down the loo there. They have a bin at the side of the toilet. Went to a few places where the bin was over flowing :eek:

Andy2 · 12/11/13 - 14:37

People who flush stuff like this down the loo must be utterley thick. What do they think happens to them? They don't dissolve like bog paper, they just go along the drain until they get caught up on some obstruction (usually a pile of other thick sods' tampons & cooking fat) until there's enough to stop the flow.

Elyan · 12/11/13 - 14:38

If nobody did it the manufacturers of toilet wipes would make people redundant, shops would sell less and so need fewer staff, plumbers would suffer a drop in business, drain maintenance companies would go out of business, the treasury would incur losses in tax revenue. The list is endless.

No... flushing extraordinary objects down the lavatory is good for the UK.

SnrDev · 12/11/13 - 14:38

Scott Cheg wrote: »

My 3 year old daughter uses the toilet wipes. I'm sure those are flushable!?

Read the packet, or try a clean one yourself - if it dissolves in water it's ok to flush, otherwise you're flushing a potential blockage into the sewer and hoping that it makes it to the main sewer without blocking the much smaller diameter supply pipes, the ones that run from your house and join up with other similar pipes. Where branches meet, that's where blockages are likely to start, and stuff that doesn't dissolve increases the chances.

Andy2 · 12/11/13 - 14:39

Babsefc wrote: »

I've recently come back from a holiday in Cyprus - you can't even put toilet paper down the loo there. They have a bin at the side of the toilet. Went to a few places where the bin was over flowing :eek:

Crete is like that. The sewage pipes are very narrow and cannot cope with great wodges of toilet paper, so there's a bin by everyone's toilet. You soon get used to it!

SnrDev · 12/11/13 - 14:44

Andy2 wrote: »

People who flush stuff like this down the loo must be utterley thick. What do they think happens to them? They don't dissolve like bog paper, they just go along the drain until they get caught up on some obstruction (usually a pile of other thick sods' tampons & cooking fat) until there's enough to stop the flow.

I like this post. Well said.

Scott Cheg · 12/11/13 - 14:46

When you think about all the houses in the uk, most of them connected to water and sewerage pipes... the network of pipes down there must be huge!!

SnrDev · 12/11/13 - 14:52

It is, but the pipe from each house into successively larger channels is quite small and can get blocked, esp at junctions where it meets other pipes. The underground sewers you see on tv are big enough for people to walk along; the 4" [edit - 4 inches, about 100mm] pipe from your house is big enough only to deal with waste + toilet paper. Once you start lobbing non-dissolvable content down there you're asking for trouble.

It's common in Greece, Crete etc (see above) to see notices asking patrons not to throw anything down the toilet that they haven't already eaten. That's a pretty good basis for what can go into the sewer system.

albertd · 12/11/13 - 14:59

A few days ago, Thames Water were chasing a plastic bottle that had got into a small sewer pipe around here. I don't know if they finally retrieved it (I suspect not) but I wonder how it got there in the first place.

Ethel_Fred · 12/11/13 - 15:12

Scott Cheg wrote: »

Just heard an advert on the radio asking people not to flush cooking fat and wetwipes down the toilet

I flush both.

Then stop it - I had a flat that was flooded because of unthinking ***** like you

TrollHunter · 12/11/13 - 15:22

Is it still ok to flush alligators down the toilet?

http://www.snopes.com/critters/lurkers/gator.asp

Shrike · 12/11/13 - 15:29

I once lived in a shared house where someone used tissues rather than toilet paper - we had to call dynorod out. Don't assume the blockage will be the water companies problem, as the blockage is very likely to happen before it reaches the main sewer.

Hey there!

Quick Links

I flush wetwipes down the toilet

Comments