Typically, wastewater travels in one of two directions. It either enters a septic tank close to your house or travels through a conduit to the neighborhood’s local sewer.
Wastewater passes through a screen of metal rods that filters larger materials and items that enter the sewers before it reaches your local treatment facility.
After that, everything is sent to a settling tank, where picked-up solids like sand and gravel sink to the bottom.
After passing through the primary sedimentation tanks, wastewater then moves on to the secondary and, in some circumstances, tertiary treatment facilities where it is disinfected with chlorine and/or ultraviolet (UV) radiation.
Finally, particularly in the most cutting-edge sewage treatment systems, we might have recycled water that can be used for human consumption or in agriculture.
Keep in mind that by changing your behavior, you are lowering the quantity of hazardous and potentially dangerous substances and chemicals that come into contact with water and marine life.
Just think that everything you flush has the potential to enter our public waterways.
When you flush un-necessary items down your toilet, you not only run the risk of harming your plumbing, but damaging the Earth by contaminating your local water supply.
We might view out toilet as being the ultimate waste disposal unit.
Put things in, press that magical flush button and hey presto, it all disappears.. or does it?
Your local Plumbers In Town might be able to unblock your toilet and fix your issues, but to avoid any un-necessary expense or embarrassment, here are some things you should avoid flushing down the toilet.
Keep your bathroom throne for wees and poos and toilet paper.
12 Things you definitely shouldn’t flush down your toilet.
1. Baby wipes.
Baby wipes are wonderful items.
They clean up not only baby poop but remove makeup, clean your surfaces and give your face and skin a nice fresh revival.
It might appear as though they would easily flush down your system, but this is not the case.
They simply don’t disintegrate the same way toilet paper does.
Don’t let the term ‘flushable wipes ‘lead you astray either, because they are certainly not flushable.
In fact, they are one of the most frequent culprits associated with blocked toilet drains.
2. Sanitary items.
Items such as sanitary pads, tampons and panty liners are designed to absorb moisture.
They also expand to reflect the moisture they come across.
This can make for some tricky and rather unpleasant issues if one of these ends up getting stuck in your system.
3. Nappies and pads.
Baby nappies and pads do absorb moisture.
But, just as sanitary items do, they expand when exposed to moisture and can cause some serious damage to your pipes and toilet system.
Baby nappies and adult incontinence aids/pads are so absorbent due to an ingredient called polyacrylate.
If you’ve ever made the mistake of having one of these little tikes diapers go through a cycle in your washing machine, you’ll understand the mess they make.
Just imagine how much destruction this will cause to your plumbing!
4. Condoms
Congratulations on keeping yourself safe from STD’s and unplanned pregnancies, but keep your used condoms in the bin.
Latex is bad for your plumbing system and they are non-biodegradable and it looks terrible in our public water ways.
5. Paper towels
It’s paper and towel just like toilet paper, right?
Nooooo.. Not even close.
They are not made from the same materials and paper towels don’t crumble the same way as toilet paper.
These items are more likely to become a large and solid lump than become small little fragments like toilet paper does.
6. Cotton buds
They might be small and flexible, but they also don’t break down quickly and have been known to block drains.
Cotton swabs are responsible for many clogged toilets.
7. Dental floss
Teflon or nylon are typically used to make dental floss. It forms large balls that block pumps and sewers when flushed down the toilet.
It meets up with other culprits such as paper towels, wet wipes, hair, and other materials and forms massive clogs that are troublesome and costly to rectify.
8. Cigarette butts
These things are honestly a skurge, they are similar to the plague.
Terrible for your health, bad for the environment and a no no for your loo too.
Some might feel the butts are harmless, but they are made up of a couple of layers of paper, a filter made from cellulose acetate and still contain nicotine and other unhealthy chemicals.
9. Medication
It might seem easy to flush your expired and un-required medication down the toilet for easy disposal.
This can poison the water resources around you, affecting wildlife as well as potentially young children and other individuals.
Your local pharmacy can dispose of these for free on your behalf.
10. Bleach or strong cleaning chemicals
Cleaning your loo can be a bit of a process.
Using bleach and other strong chemicals should be avoided as they give of toxic fumes which can cause you respiratory distress as well as impacting on the environment.
They are also very corrosive and may damage your pipes and plumbing system, making for a very expensive exercise indeed.
11. Hair
Your hair is organic right?
So, it shouldn’t pose any risk at all?
Think again.
Organic matter does not guarantee that it won’t harm the environment. It does, unfortunately.
Similar to dental floss, hair aids in the formation of large balls that cause significant obstructions in the sewage system and trap offensive odours in your plumbing.
Keep your brush cleaning and hair combing activities away from the bathroom whenever possible.
12. Kitty litter
It might seem easy to just flick your beloved felines kitty litter and other offending waste down the loo and simply flush away.
The parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which affects people with weakened immune systems, may be present in cat excrement.
Dumping parasitic waste into your plumbing system poses a risk to public health because many water treatment plants are unable to handle these types of pollutants.