For those of you who flush nappies, wet wipes and SAN pro down the toilet...

[TheHodgeoftheHedge]

Aibu to gently remind people that the only things that should go down the toilet (and sink) are bodily fluids and tissue paper?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-london-41238272
It seems to come up quite frequently that people don't understand you shouldn't flush other things down there.

I have never flushed nappies or wet wipes down the toilet. I always flushed tampons though, I thought it was fine until I read otherwise on here!

Sorry no idea why the link didn't work...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-london-41238272

To my shame I used to flush tampons...genuinely didn't realise you're not supposed to until I joined MN. Don't do it now!

People flush nappies? How do they even fit down?

That is so gross.

I had no idea you couldn't flush wet wipes until I blocked our toilet and drain and our raw sewage flowed merrily down the street for all to see.

You can buy moist toilet paper which I now use instead of normal wet wipes. Lesson learnt!

Don't forget the grease and lard washed down sinks.

Those moist tissues cause trouble too. I suggest a bidet.

Our drain overflows down our drive periodically. Wipes and sanpro clogging it up. Gawd knows how. I don't use that stuff and use a mooncup and don't flush wipes.

Bamboo towels are good, they wash. They're like kitchen roll only better and you can use to wipe and then either put in a bucket, as you would a nappy bucket or wash over the sink when you're done and re-use. If you use the bucket/milton method then they'll wash fine at 40 in a machine. Each one can be used around 80 times.
For those of you saying eww, it's only what we did before disposable nappies came along!

Until about 15 years ago I too thought it was OK to flush tampons.

However, we got a blocked drain - it is shared with next door. After DH and man next door unsuccessfully tried to rod it themselves we had to get a specialist company in. I was (hiding) inside but apparently drain man, DH and man-next-door were all staring in to the man hole and tampons were bobbing about and man next door was commenting "We don't put anything like that down" (his wife must have been nearly 60 by then)

I was mortified when DH told me. Anyway, from that day to this I have never put anything other than tissue down and when DD started her periods I taught her to always use san-pro bags and put them in the bin.

Boak! I really don't understand how people can not know about not flushing tampons. I was informed that as a teenager 20 years ago, I'm shocked that anyone can have missed this.

I recently went to a venue that said don't flush teabags. Never knew flushing teabags was a thing

Toilet paper is fine. Normal tissues do not go down either. Good test: leave the item you can want to flush in a bowl of water overnight. If it disintegrates to a cloud of tiny bits it's fine. If not it must go in the bin.

I recently went to a venue that said don't flush teabags. Never knew flushing teabags was a thing

Same here!

I actually didn't know you shouldn't flush tampons until about 10 years ago. When I lived at home, we flushed sanitary towels too

My mother always said that, as long as they were torn lengthways, it was fine to do

I don't flush anything now except that which ought to be flushed.

I'm 42 and never know not to flush tampons. I'm shocked not to have known this before

Go vegan people !

Oops wrong slogan

Get a mooncup . And install a bidet 😂

Can you flush hair?

Another poster here curious as to how on earth you flush a nappy

I can't believe anyone would flush nappies (?!), wet wipes or sanitary products down the loo...

However, to be fair I have, in the past flushed tampons down when there has been no bin and I've not been at home etc...

I can't find it on google, but wasn't there an issue of someone flushing tights and causing issues in the sewage works. They put appeals out and all sorts but in the end they had to invest in new machinary that would cope.

No you should not flush hair.
Only bodily waste and toilet paper because it disintegrates.

More to the point, how do you get the message across to everyone?

You tend to quickly realize if you're on a septic tank because it'll block quickly. NDN had a lodger who threw everything down the loo and it flooded nastily in 2 months.

But people on mains drainage? The people contributing to the fatberg which will cost a million to remove in London just put fat down the sink (including restaurants dumping into drains) and throw everything down the loo.

How do you educate them and police the pubs/restaurants?

Lots of people flush "flushable" toilet wipes not realising they don't break down.

IfYouHappen, I rather suspect that the old-style crappy sanitary towels, consisting of basically fluffed loo roll in a paper tea-bag case and slung on a support belt, would have flushed quite well (they certainly disintegrated if, erm, challenged too much).

I can remember the dire embarrassment of First Year Biology, in which we were all marched to the school Bunny incinerators (no rabbits were harmed in the making of this lesson) and told we would need to rip our towels, empty out the insides and then put the outsides in the incinerator.

Fortunately, I was a late bloomer, and technology had moved on before I needed to burn any Bunnies.

Oh 5foot5 - my cheeks are burning on your behalf!

I literally didn't know you couldn't flush tampons until this year . I haven't actually used them for about 4 years but am mortified about the previous 15 years....