What do people use cotton buds for and why do they flush them?

[25Bythesea]

At a meeting in a town with a beach yesterday, went for a 5 minute walk during lunch along the beach and saw loads of plastic cotton bud sticks along a very clean beach. Apparently they get flushed down toilets and end up in the sea! What on earth do people use them for that there are so many out there, and why oh why would you flush them down the toilet??

People use them to clean their ears but I have no idea why they would flush them.

Lots of ear-cleaning here, the odd bit of make-up application, but I always bin not flush. I used to be able to get ones with sticks made of paper but haven't found any in recent years.

They sell them in the baby aisle but despite two babies I never figured out what to do with them with a baby!

We're lucky, our Co-op stocks them. There's a website too which shows where you can get paper cotton buds: www.cottonbudproject.org.uk/