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At some point in time, we’ve all looked at our reflection in the bathroom mirror and thought “surely flushing one face wipe down the loo won’t do too much harm?” With only our reflection as a witness, we then guiltily flush the wipe down the toilet and get on with our day, our environmental guilt vanishing as quickly as the make-up wipe.

Whilst occasionally flushing a make up wipe down the toilet seems like a relatively minor thing, the impact on the environment and our sewage system is huge. Make-up wipes along with baby wipes, hygiene wipes, cleaning wipes, cleansing pads, sanitary products and fats, oils and grease, fall under the umbrella of ‘unflushables’. The unflushables clump together to form monster ‘fatbergs’ in our sewage systems.  Don’t google that if you’re yet to eat lunch…

South West Water removes around 450 tonnes of unflushables from its pumping stations each year. This is the equivalent of 73 million wet wipes and would be enough to fill 30 double decker buses! In the last 12 months here at UHP, the Estates team have dealt with 1049 blocked sinks and toilets as well as other sewage related blockages- this costs UHP approximately £50k a year, and they estimate that 80% of these instances have been caused by unflushables being put down the drain. Alongside the expense, flushing unflushables poses a flooding threat which can lead to the pollution of our beautiful beaches and countryside.

Greenwashed packaging and marketing can lull you into a false sense of security, so it’s important to be clear on what can and can’t be flushed down the toilet. Even if packaging says you can flush the product, ‘flushable’ wipes don’t break down fast enough to not cause a build-up and a blockage. Likewise, biodegradable products take much longer than toilet paper to break down. Both these types of wipes need to be disposed of in the bin and not the toilet. Similarly, when oil grease and fat from food waste cools, it forms a solid mass and can build up in pipes when it is flushed down kitchen sinks.

So what can I do to stop the block?

• Scrape food scraps and fat off plates and into the bin or food waste recycling.
• Use a container or 'Gunk Pot' to collect cooled fats, oils and grease from roasting trays and frying pans. When it’s full, empty it into the kitchen bin, then wipe it out with kitchen roll ready to reuse.
• Put a sink strainer over the plughole to prevent any leftover bits from going down the sink.
• Give plates and pans a quick wipe with kitchen roll or newspaper to remove any liquid fat or grease before putting them in the sink or dishwasher.
• Love your loo by only flushing the three Ps - pee, paper and poo.

For more info, check out South West Water’s Love you Loo campaign https://www.southwestwater.co.uk/services/your-wastewater/love-your-loo/ and their Think Sink campaign https://www.southwestwater.co.uk/services/your-wastewater/think-sink/