(NEXSTAR) – Just because something can be flushed down the toilet, doesn’t mean it should be.
Plumbers and utility companies are warning people to think twice before they flush so-called “flushable” wipes down the toilet. Some of them don’t actually break down and disintegrate, creating messy (and expensive) clogging problems.
It’s not always easy to tell which wipes are truly flushable. Companies are required to test their own products before labeling them as “flushable,” but there’s not third-party verification in the U.S., CBC reports.
“Part of the problem is a lot of the packaging on wipes says ‘flushable.’ Well sure, they’re flushable. Your child can flush their toy down the toilet, but you shouldn’t. It’s costing everybody money,” Lyn Riggins, a spokesperson for Washington Suburban Sanitary Company in Maryland, told the Associated Press.
The costs of unclogging those pipes – when utilities need to install grinder pumps, manually unblock pipes, and haul away dump trucks full of wipes to the landfill – gets passed on to everyone in the form of higher utility bills and taxes.
VIDEO: Sewer pipes plugged with wads of wipes during COVID-19 pandemic
Not to mention, if a clog happens in your house, you’ll be responsible for paying the plumber to sort out your mess.
We asked Roger Wakefield, a plumber who makes educational YouTube videos, how to know if you’re unwittingly causing damage to your home’s pipes. When he tested out different brands of so-called “flushable” wipes on his YouTube channel, he found big differences in how easily the products broke down.
“Normally when it is truly a flushable wipe there aren’t any problems. The problem is that most people are flushing baby wipes,” Wakefield told Nexstar. “Baby wipes use a plastic binding fiber that makes them not tear apart, not dissolve. These completely ruin people’s sewer systems and are a problem for the water treatment plant, where they end up.”
Wakefield recommended Cottonelle flushable wipes as a good option because they break down easily. Wipes that don’t break down easily – like baby wipes, makeup remover wipes and disinfecting wipes – are where the real trouble lies.
You’ll want to look for flushable wipes that are made up of cellulose plant fibers, which are designed to dissolve within hours, Dave Rousse, president of the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry, said in 2020 (when a pandemic-driven spike in wipe usage created sewage clog issues around the country).
“These wipes are incapable of causing the kinds of problems that wastewater operators are accusing them of,” he told the AP.
“Do your research and make sure that they disolve like toilet paper does and you won’t have any problems,” said Wakefield. On the other hand, “If you are flushing baby wipes, only one could get caught up in the pipe and lead to major blockages.”