To not understand how you can be so ignorant and unaware of the world around you that you still flush wet wipes and tampons down the toilet?

[A580Hojas]

How is it even possible in the information age?

I reckon a huge number of people know they shouldn't do it but flush anyway in the hope they will get away with it and they won't be the one having to dig out any resulting blockage.

Much like the hundreds of thousands of cunts who chuck their litter out of car windows - out of sight out of mind.

Gets me down, it does.

Yolo - I'm 33, no DC and with a pelvic floor of steel. I've had one fall out when I went to the loo. Because if you're constipated, one tip is to press inside the vagina. So when the opposite happens, you're having a bowel movement and it presses the vagina, your tampon is low down because it's soaked, the pressure forces it out. And sometimes I bear down without realising anyway

This isn't an 'education and ignorance' issue, it's a 'cultural change' issue. I started using Tampax in the 1990s. I've been using them over 20 years. I read the instructions twice because they're not exactly the most technical bit of kit, and I can assure you that the instructions then said you can flush them. I know that because I Googled old leaflets and they say 'flush or bin the used tampon'.

I used to have periods so heavy that a super plus tampon would last half an hour and it would drop out of me into the toilet bowl as I sat down. I'd have blood running down my legs. It definitely wouldn't have occurred to me to fish it out into a doggy bag.

If the rules changed, then they should have run an adult campaign, instead of focusing on how they contributed to Armageddon by making tampons with plastic applicators and plastic covers, when the cardboard ones were doing a fine job for many a year!

I knew, and I didn't care. there I've said it!

there, I’ve said it!

Ooh what a hero you are. Not giving a shit about society, public spending or the environment. slow hand clap

5plusMeAndHim, do you drop litter in the street too?

The publicised farbergs have been in areas of extremely high density food outlets- take aways and restaurants ie brick lane. I’m not at all surprised people didn’t look at the fatberg next to the food outlets and think about their own tampon use

It's not just fat in the fatbergs though as wipes and other products join up with the fat too

Honestly did not know you were not supposed to flush tampons. That used to be one of the benefits of using them as unlike sanitary towels they were flushable!

When did the advice change as many people have said upthread it's not like you keep reading the leaflets

Well yes I know. But you wouldn’t necessarily know that from seeing a headline

5plusMeAndHim, do you drop litter in the street too?

No because that looks ugly.Don't see what's flushed away though

Oh @YoloSwaggins, you are funny! Why would you disbelieve several people telling you their stories?

Does it matter why it happens? It just does, for some people. Pelvic floor, prolapse, all sorts of reasons.

You can keep saying it doesn't happen, but it does.

Clearly YoloSwaggins knows more about what happens with other women’s vaginas than they do themselves

I thought you could flush them till about 20 years ago when I was a teenager and my dad had to manually remove them all from the drains in the garden as they had built up and got lodged. I was mortified and parents told me never to flush anything that wasn't a bodily fluid or toilet paper again! I was the only one menstruating so they knew exactly who to blame. Shudder thinking about it. Mooncup all the way now.

The last time they discussed wet wipes on radio 4 someone from Andrex stated that they stood by their claim that their wipes (what do they call them? Flushlets? Washlets? ) were flushable and did not cause blockages. Interesting issue.

I don’t flush them, haven’t for years. And I don’t use wipes either.

Surely we’re just adding to landfill problems though?

And I agree with a PP: if men menstruated our whole sewerage system would be light years ahead.

It is not just about blocking the sewers. They all end up in the sea ....

The non-flushable signs on boxes of tampons are very small because it suits the manufacturers that people still think they’re flushable. As many people here have said, women use them because they’re less messy than pads and mooncups and they believed they could flush them. Take away flushability and you lose a USP.

FWIW I also didn’t know they weren’t flushable until I read it on Mumsnet. Am I also allowed to say mine drop out when saturated too, and have done since I was a teen? Or if I say that does it mean I clearly have some kind of gynaecological / anatomical problems as diagnosed by several people above?

User149....
What snash 12 said: "To the people who say they had no idea you shouldnt flush tampons, what about the signs / stickers inside public toilets, shopping centre toilets, restaurant toilets everywhere that says "please do not flush sanitation products down the toilet"."
Which of course is NOT THE SAME as ' you can't flush tampons'. It just isn't. So you can bleat all you want but it is just not clear. And I don't care if there was something about a sodding fatberg on TV. I did happen to see that news item, thousands wouldn't have, and it focused on fat and wet wipes. I didn't even hear the word tampon. I don't care if you think it's obvious I think this thread clearly shows that it's not. If a clear message is needed it's not happening.

When I first started my periods disposable pads were in their infancy and you were instructed to tear them in half and flush.When I started using tampons you were also supposed to flush them .
When DD started her periods I found that tampons were to be put in the bin.At home we had a septic tank so used to dealing with them.
As for tampons falling out,I never had a problem despite very heavy periods UNTIL the onset of the menopause when they crashed out when I sat on the toilet along with lots and lots of clots that had built up behind,no amount of clenching helped.So for those disbelievers some of you will find out for yourselves .

Didn't know about milk.What about mascerators that water companies used to give discounts on and waste from dishwashers?

I’m finding this all really interesting.

My mother told me never to flush Sanpro. We were always given bags to dispose of them in. Similarly she never poured fat down the sink, rather into an old jar which I have always done.

The milk thing was new to me to be honest (not that I can recall the last time I poured any away - apart from the dregs of cups).

BUT it then occurred to me that my kitchen sink waste and toilet waste all join on the outside wall of my house and go in same sewer.

We have water company people working on sewers down the road so I asked them last night. They said that with the system in most of the UK it makes no difference whether it goes in the loo or the sink but never pour it away if you have a septic tank.....

Confused now. The wet loo wipes I use say they "break apart when flushed" on the wrapper, surely they wouldn't be allowed to say that if it weren't true?

Do they say how long it takes? Could be a decade.

Beauty creams lie on packs by clever wording. This is the same.

Body waste and bog roll. Nothing else flushes.

Until someone forces the manufacturers to write in big red letters DO NOT FLUSH people will keep doing it. And every home needs to have a bin next to the toilet so these type of things can be discreetly disposed of.