MNHQ here: what do you think about manufacturers marketing wipes as 'flushable'?

Speaking as someone with a stoma and no working arse I have to use wipes (medical and supermarket ones) and it annoys me they are deemed 'flushable'. They are not.

You can add in my support. I'm surprised there hasn't been some sort of campaign before. I assume those 'disposable' toilet duck things must also be a culprit?

Hope nobody is eating whilst reading this

This thread reminds me of when I had to clear my mother's drains for her. She used to use toilet wipes, not wet wipes, actual wipes branded as flushable. TMI Alert:

Several years ago she rang me one day saying the toilet (downstairs one as upstairs was broken) had backed up. It would have been years since anyone had looked at the drains as she had lived alone for years.

So I popped round and opened the manhole nearest to the toilet. This was inside the garage, at the top end as the downstairs toilet backed on to the garage.

Now when you open a manhole/drain cover the actual sewer drain itself is a good 30 - 50cm below the cover. The first manhole was full to the brim of compacted shit, you could not see in to the drain at all, just pure poop.

I then lifted the second manhole cover, which is at the top of the driveway, about a metre outside the garage door. This was same as the first drain, full of poop just full to the brim and compacted together, that drain is deeper than the first.

Finally the third manhole cover which is at the bottom of the drive, yes you guessed it, full of poop, very close to the top and packed in solid, this drain is the deepest but was still nearly overflowing. When I say the drains were full, I bascially mean you could see no clay pipe, no brickwork, just shit.

So that was a full driveway plus a full garage lengths worth of built up poop.

And yes I cleared it for her. Wearing a face mask and using an old washing line pole I had to stir and stir it for hours until it started to loosen.

Quite possibly the worst day of my life.

I am 100% behind this campaign.

I have machine-washed and reused regular babywipes. They do not break down easily and are therefore definitely not flushable.

OTOH I have toilet-cleaning wipes which are marketed as flushable, and when I use them for cleaning surfaces they disintegrate. Not as much as toilet paper would, but it certainly suggests that they are flushable.

Is it that different sewage systems can cope with different degrees of 'flushability'? Does everything have to be considered unflushable, even if some systems could cope with it?

Yes, definitely back this campaign!

I support this too. People flushing wipes etc cost us all money in higher utility bills.

I'm always that signs telling people not to flush nappies and sanitary pads are needed at all.

Definitely.
I'm always surprised how many people don't realise these things shouldn't be flushed!

I agree that something needs to be done. I was completely ignorant about this and always bought them when my kids were little as they are much better for helping them clean their backsides.
However every plumber that has come over the past 6 years has said categorically NOT to use them as they do not in fact degrade. They also said don't put whole fruit down the loo but DS2 has learned his lesson there...

playduh

Simple test for you put one in a bowl of water, if it does not break down fairly quickly then no you shouldn't flush it.

Love it. Having to bag up your moist Andrex like it's a nappy or a dog poo will obviously hurt sales of totally unnecessary moist paper. I don't much like Andrex, ever since I was small I wondered why they want me to wipe my bum with puppies.

I flushed the Kandoo wipes too- because they say 'flushable'.

Oh blimey. We've been potty training and the 'dispersable' wipes I've been flushing have been fab. Are these a lie too? We have a shared septic tank and if the lies on the packet are about to cost me a fortune I'll be really angry.

So YY - everyone should know!

greybead you should have gone to trading standards, blatantly lies about product should not be tolerated, especially when it affects our health, wellbeing or environment.

i saw on tv the other day about these blockages. with wetwipes floating in the sewer. so obviously they are not flushable/bio-degradable.

Completely agree with this. I've never flushed ordinary baby wipes but when my kids were toilet training, I used "flushable" kandoo wipes. After a while, my drains became blocked and I had to get a company to come out and clear them, costing me ££. The guy who cleared several hundred or possibly thousand of these wipes out of my drain system told me never to flush a kandoo wipe again as they aren't actually flushable.

I had thought that they were a quick and hygienic way to clear bums/accidents etc so I even wiped ds's wee off the floor with them and flushed them. After the drain incident, I never bought anything by kandoo ever again. Several year later, drains completely fine. Think kandoo should be fined for this sort of marketing.

Never knew you can't flush tampons..
Surely the 'powers that be' should be 'encouraging'( forcing) manufacturers to make these things properly biodegradable and suing them for misleading information on their packaging

I didn't realise either, I presumed the flushable toilet wipes were the flushable and the flushable nappy liners were also flushable. Will stop flushing them now.... I agree with others that the manufacturers should not be able to claim this on their packaging.

I knew not to flush baby wipes etc (for the most part I use washables, anyway, so not an issue) but I use those loo cleaner wipes sometimes and deliberately buy the ones that say "flushable" on them - I had no idea.

I'm glad of the thread. I won't do it in future.

Device 1, cozie 0.

I think the answer to your question is probably* Yes, Rowan.*

Which is not what you understood from the front, 20th?

I am a bit shocked by this thread. I don't consider myself an idiot and would never flush sanpro or baby wipes but when I buy a product from tesco that says "Flushable & dispersible breaks down when flushed" on the front, I expect that's what it will do!

Retraining my, very particular, pre-schooler will be a challenge but I will give it a go.

Have just investigated the packet further and right enough it does say flush only one wipe at a time in the small print on back.

They're not suitable for being flushed. I certainly wouldn't.

Same goes for tampons and towels. Bag and bin, never flush.

Goring - one a week is probably not going to make all that much difference if you are having your septic tank emptied regularly anyway, but if your tank and drains are as sodding useless fragile as ours (we regularly have to clear a build up of washing liquid residue FGS) then it really can't take the strain of anything extra - I am sure no one needs to know the sort of sludge that quilted toilet paper can turn into but I have met it in person and will never buy sodding puppies on a roll again (apologies for TMI).

And here's an article on the London 'fatberg'.