The rush to flush
Dec 12, 2017, 7:03 AM
Seattle and King County have been penalized for sewer discharge violations. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
(AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
Remember the terrifying videos from the London sewer of that clog called a fatberg – that mixture of congealed fat and various paper and plastics?
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Well, that inspired a new law that takes effect Jan. 1 in Washington DC requiring paper companies to prove that bathroom wipes labeled “flushable” really are.
Try this experiment. Take two jars of water, put regular toilet paper in one, a flushable wipe in the other, and shake vigorously. The toilet paper turns to soup while the flushable wipe does not.
But Kimberly-Clark Corporation — a paper company — rejects that and is suing DC, saying its flushable products are indeed flushable, and it has no fewer than 30 patents to prove it.
So who’s right? Well, in 2016, a forensic investigation of New York City sewers found that many of the paper products clogging the filters could actually be identified by brand name because they were still intact. And less than 2 percent of the remains were of the flushable variety. The real villain was all the non-flushable stuff that people flush anyway, such as Huggies and baby wipes.
Who flushes stuff like that?
While the flushable wipes do not appear to be the problem, it’s just possible their mere existence is sending a message that similar-looking products are also flushable. In which case your friends at the sewer department, who would rather not spend the afternoon raking over your personal hygiene products, would like to remind you they’re not!
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