Wet wipes, can they be thrown in the toilet?
At home, when it is with you, it is delicate, soft, light…
…but, as soon as you turn your back and lose sight of it, it meets in the underworld with others just like it and grows up to become a beast of enormous proportions that ends up devastating and destroying everything in its path.
Contents of the article
What happens when you throw the wipes into the toilet?
When you throw it into the toilet, in a few hours the wipe runs through the pipes, it reaches the catch basins (deposits that connect pipe), continues its route to the sewage pumping stations and, if it has not yet stuck, it flows into the sewage treatment plants and run into filters that stop it, unable to treat objects of that size.
Braking, unable to continue its process, the wipe adds to others like it and forms a huge mass that periodically paralyzes the facilities and often causes an overflow and untreated sewage to reach the rivers.
A major problem
To understand to what extent the problem is major, remember that in 2017 a huge mass of 130 tons blocked the sewers of East London.
Another mass, this time of 60 tons and 3.5 kilometers in length, collapsed a sewage collector from San Sebastián and, for 52 days, while the tasks of unblocking were carried out, the sewage had to be diverted directly to the sea.
Or in Valencia, where an immense plug of more than 100 tons of weight obstructed the main sewage conduction of the city.
And, in terms of spending, the EurEau (association of supply and sanitation companies in 29 countries) estimated in 2014 that disposing of the wipes into the toilet generates an expenditure of about 1,000 million euros per year.
Wet toilet paper? What is its composition?
They are sold as “wet toilet paper”, but they are not paper, don’t let them fool you, because they are often composed not only of cellulose fibers, but also of a textile fabric of polyester and / or cotton, plus glycerin and cleaning substances.
Although they are biodegradable (somewhat questionable), their degradation will not occur until too long has passed and, therefore, they will have already done a lot of damage to our economy and the environment.
What can we do?
If you use them, do not throw the wipes into the toilet.
Enable a trash can in the bathroom and leave them there until you can take them to the relevant waste container, that is, to the trash container, because the wet wipes are NOT paper and cannot be recycled.
Or do not use them.
We will always have the bidet.
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