I am the customer: Steve Grebby

“Water firms spent £50m clearing 200,000 blockages”

This month we’ll be publicising some of the strangest items that have been fished from our sewer network in the past year. Some will be greeted with disbelief and laughter – but the message we are trying to get across is a serious one.

In 2014/15, water companies in England and Wales spent about £50 million clearing more than 200,000 pipe blockages caused by ‘inappropriate’ items being flushed down the loo or poured down the sink. For many years fats, oils and greases were the chief culprits but now wet and so-called flushable wipes are rapidly becoming the scourge of our sewer network.

Raising consumer awareness will be instrumental in reversing this trend and protecting more homes and communities from the miserable impact of sewer flooding. Sewerage companies have not been slow to react and many already have successful campaigns aimed at influencing their own customers’ behaviour; our research reveals 64 per cent of consumers in 2014 were able to identify what they should not put down the toilet – up from 43 per cent in 2013.

But we need an industry-wide campaign if we are to influence both consumers and the manufacturers of ‘flushable’ products. The seeds for this have been sown through the Water UK-led 21st Century Drainage project, which aims to deliver a resilient drainage and sewerage system. Through better collaboration we hope to bring about lasting change to a problem that it is in everyone’s interests to tackle.

Steve Grebby, policy manager, Consumer Council for Water