To be surprised that people flush tampons and towels still?

[Pipbin]

So many people seem to fail to see that it's a problem.

This program: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0419n5m/watermen-a-dirty-business-episode-1 showed why it's a problem.

[Pipbin]

Thanks Natasha, I use a moon cup already but I get spotting and use panty liners or towels for the first few days.

[TillyTellTale]

I'm telling you about a misspent youth experimenting with wet toilet tissue! Look at this guy instead!

[CharlotteCollins]

Who is that?!

Can he tell me interesting things about everyday materials? Cos if not, I don't want to know. :o

[TillyTellTale]

He is Loki (played by Tom Hiddleston) from the Thor and Avengers films. He is sardonic and a Magnificent Bastard.

Rent them all from your library, Netflix or Amazon. He's fantastic!

[MostWicked]

I had no idea that tampons couldn't be flushed.
I haven't used one in about 14 years, I am a mooncup convert with an occasional washable pad. So much better for me, regardless of the other reasons.
There is a lack of information for people who don't know to go looking.

[NeverQuiteSure]

for the cheaper alternatives to the branded mooncups.

[lottiegarbanzo]

I think this might be a generational thing. I'm 40 and will have been told, by the packet, other women, probably the person who gave us 'the talk' at school, that you flush tampons (and towels, by tearing them up).

As a student, campaigning on environmental issues, this issue, from the environmental 'ends up on beaches and in turtles' perspective, (don't think there was wide awareness about sewers), was seen as being at the more irrelevant end of 'nutty green' territory.

Are younger women more generally aware about this? Or is it just there've been some documentaries about fat-bergs in sewers so more people generally are aware, regardless of age?

[lottiegarbanzo]

I do know that flushable does not mean 'can be managed effectively by the sewerage and water treatment system' and that water companies get very cross about this. It means you can flush, not you should, or it's in any way a good idea.

[IamInvisible]

I haven't flushed towels or tampons for at least 20 years. I'm pretty sure that in the mid to late nineties there was quite a lot on the news about people flushing them down the loo and them ending up on the beaches.

I bag them and bin them.

[TillyTellTale]

I remember those documentaries, IamInvisible! And there was a organisation called Surfers Against Sewage, wasn't there?

As a direct consequence, I think I ended up being horrified soon afterwards when my mother told me to flush tampons. Indignant waving of instruction leaflets may have occurred.

[Pipbin]

I remember my mum teaching me to flush and then later telling me not to as it ends up on beaches. That would have been the late 80s.

[lottiegarbanzo]

That fits. My studenty days were early nineties and SAS rose to prominence a bit after that.

[3lovelykids]

I've always flushed mine. Would hate to see the mess after neighborhood cats have ripped open my bin bags if I didn't

[WhoKnowsWhereTheChocolateGoes]

My student days were in the 80s, the awareness did come later, my mum taught me to flush but I stopped about 15 years ago, I really did think binning them was totally the norm now.

[Trillions]

Well, I have been menstruating for over 20 years (not continuously, obv) and I had no idea that it wasn't OK to flush tampons. I thought sewage got dried out and then incinerated somehow so flushing was better than putting them in rubbish to end up in landfill. What are we meant to do with them?

[Pipbin]

I remember discussing this at school. One friend said that her parents would take them into the back garden and burn them.

[KissesBreakingWave]

Right, you lot flushing the fucking tampons:

I SPENT AN HOUR THIS EVENING ANKLE-DEEP IN RUNNY SHITE BECAUSE OF ONE OF YOU IGNORANT MARES.

Chap with a basement flat in a block with, apparently, one of you in it. The sewer has blocked, the soil stack backed up, and the resulting surge tide of stench, foul water, and actual identifiable Richards* got as high as his bathroom sink. The overflow got as far as his kitchen. Fortunately, I had wellies, disposable hazmat overall, and stout rubber gloves to wade through and help rescue his personal possessions. The mask to keep the aerosolised HUMAN FUCKING DUNG from entering my personal lungs didn't do anything about the BASTARDING SMELL.

Dyno-rod have been out once and been defeated. They're coming back in the morning with the HEAVY equipment.

This isn't the first time I've seen this happen, either. And if you think I sound testy on the subject, speak to a dynorod franchisee. Or, better, a sewage guy from your friendly local water company.

And never mind what it says on the fucking packet. The bellend that writes the packet copy almost certainly never had to deal with a backed up drain, but thinks if he puts 'don't flush it' some too-precious-to-admit-she's-a-functioning-female flower is going to stop buying the product in favour of a competitor who leaves 'flushable' on there.

The toilet is for shit, piss and toilet paper. Nothing else. Next time it could be YOUR hallway that it floods out over. Except that since There Ain't No Justice, it probably won't be, karma never seems to hit where it ought to.


*Richard III. Rhyming slang.

[TillyTellTale]

What are we meant to do with them?

Bin 'em.

And no, British water treatment plants do not incinerate sewage. Even if they did, that would not solve the issues of the blockages sanitary products cause on the way to the plant. (KissesBreakingWaves has described the issues for householders.)

British water treatment procedures

[fidelineish]

This thread is the only bastion of sanity tonight but I'm scared of enraging Tilly (again)

Going to ask anyway; is a biodegradable tampon possible? Because surely there is something durable enough to endure four hours in a vagina but disintegrate after 24 hours in water (disclaimer: not a materials scientist)

[KissesBreakingWave]

24 hours isn't fast enough. It's got to be falling apart after seconds, a minute at absolute most. It's got to be ripped apart going around the u-bend: you've generally got several metres of four-inch pipe between your throne and a sewer of any size, and generally the next one up is only six inches anyway. Unless it's disintegrated enough to flow like a liquid by the time it hits the bottom of your soil stack, it's too solid for sewage. Anything that can survive being inserted into and removed from a standard-issue vagina is going to have to be tougher than that.

All biodegradeable means is 'at least something in the soil can eat it' and cotton, being plant material, satisfies that definition already. To be flushable it'd have to have material properties that would make it useless for its intended purpose.

[fidelineish]

And to think I thought unbleached cotton was the san pro issue.

[TillyTellTale]

It might be worth investigating 100% biodegradable brands like Natracare in conjunction with a compost bin.

www.natracare.com/p149/en-GB/Our-Environment/Sanitary-Waste/Composting.aspx

I'm not sure how this works, considering sanitary products are generally regarded as a health risk, so investigate to see if it would be a health hazard.

[TillyTellTale]

And yes, what KissesBreakingWave said. Although I didn't explain myself, any hopes of finding something flushable is simply a dead end. It's just not gonna work.

[rideyourbike]

I'm amazed people still use disposable at all! Washable sanpro is so much better!

[fidelineish]

Not if you have no handbasins in the loos (victorian gothic wreck). Thinking about it, but the initial outlay will be more than the price of two mooncups.