No Wipes in the Pipes

Many toilet paper alternatives such as “flushable wipes”, wet wipes, sanitary napkins, and even paper towels cannot safely be flushed down the toilet. Wet wipes flushed down toilets contribute to many sewer blockages in sanitary sewer lines, and even your home.

Wet wipes or flushable wipes, that claim they are “safe for flushing” can still cause serious damage to your home’s plumbing. Flushing wipes down the toilet might cause an immediate issue, however, the problem can arise later as the wipes move through the sewer system. These wipes don’t dissolve, and ultimately clump together causing pipe clogs. If these sewage backups and overflows lead to overflows inside homes, it can lead to health risks for residents and their families.

When the wipes make it to the sewage treatment plant, the facilities become overworked trying to process the solid waste that doesn’t breakdown. The result of flushing these products could mean major wastewater treatment issues for your individual home and for your District’s wastewater treatment facilities. By flushing any products other than toilet paper, we create not only inconveniences in services but also incur very costly repairs.

Examples of things you should not flush are:

The items listed are considered ”non-biodegradable", meaning they can’t be broken down organically. The ability for materials to be broken down organically is important as wastewater treatment plants use micro-organisms to break down, feed on, and remove contaminants and pollutants from the waste. Micro-organisms cannot break down the items mentioned above, and therefore they damage the equipment in the plants leading to costly repairs to clean and replace this equipment.

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