Unequivocal guidance ‘needed to end nightmare of wet wipe blockages’

Wessex Water has stressed that urgent action is needed to warn customers of the dangers of flushing wet wipes.

Speaking in BBC One’s ‘War on Plastic’ documentary, Matt Wheeldon, director of assets and compliance, rallied for clearer designations for consumers.

“Fine to Flush means free from plastic and rigorously tested, meaning the wipe will break down in the sewer system,” Wheeldon said.

“Anything else should be marked Do Not Flush, with nothing in between. It’s as simple as that. Only then, when customers have clear and unequivocal disposal guidance, can we hope to end the nightmare of wipe-related blockages.”

There have been multiple cases of wet wipes marketed as ‘flushable’ while still being made with plastic, meaning they do not break down in sewers, causing expensive and disruptive blockages.

To combat this, Water UK and the Water Resource Centre launched a “fine to flush” symbol which specifically designates products which will break down safely in the system.

Water companies have also made a concerted effort towards educating their customers about what can and cannot be flushed or poured down drains, such as Yorkshire Water’s campaign for customers to pledge to stop flushing wipes.

When flushed, wet wipes and other sanitary products frequently combine with oil and grease in sewers to form fatbergs – congealed blockages as hard as concrete, which are difficult and costly to remove.  A 2017 Water UK study found that wipes were present in 93 per cent of the 300,000 annual sewer blockages, which in total cost water companies £100 million to clear.

The 130-tonne Whitechapel fatberg has been the most notorious example so far. In February a 90-tonne fatberg was discovered under Liverpool, while Devon’s largest fatberg was found by South West Water at the start of the year.

Wheeldon continued : “Every day our staff are called out to help customers who’ve suffered a blockage caused by wet wipes being wrongly flushed down their toilet or a neighbour’s.

“These blockages can lead to sewage flooding people’s homes and gardens, a horrific experience that could easily be avoided by everyone only flushing the three Ps – paper, poo and pee.”

The documentary sees families living along a single Bristol road challenged to drastically reduce the amount of single-use plastics in their homes for four months.

The second episode focused on wet wipes, with presenter Aniti Rani and the families travelling to Wessex Water’s water recycling center in Avonmouth. Here they witnessed how wet wipes do not break down like regular tissues paper when flushed, and how they produce tonnes of unavoidable waste at the centre.