Butt wipes clogging sewer systems

Gawker - According to a report in The Washington Post, wipes are responsible for a 35 percent jump in jammed pumps and clogged pipes in the Washington area over the last few years.

Adult wipers have also cost the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission more than $1 million dollars because they’ve had to “install heavy-duty grinders to shred wipes and other debris before they reach pumps on the way to the treatment plant.” On top of this, officials in the District’s water and sewer agency have spent over 500 hundred man-hours in the last year “removing stuck wipes.” And this summer, after hearing complaints that toilets wouldn’t flush in London, a 15-ton “glob of wipes and hardened cooking grease the size of a bus” was discovered in a sewer pipe.

With “flushable” wipes making up 14 percent of the $4 billion “pre-moistened” wipe market, and with sales predicted to grow annually by 6 percent for the next five years, the Federal Trade Commission is now leading an investigation into the “flushable” label.