If you can’t flush them, why are they called “flushable”?
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This’ll be a long, but hopefully simple, post talking about this from a UK perspective. Will talk about ‘do not flush’ wipes, ‘flushable’ wipes, and ‘fine to flush’ wipes. I work in the UK Water Industry specifically on the wet wipe issue, and have sat in workshops about the ‘fine to flush’ standard.
For something to be genuinely flushable, it basically needs to not cause a problem for the sewer system. This includes the pipes it travels through, pumping stations (or lift stations in the USA), and the sewage treatment works at the end. Anything that doesn’t break apart could block a pipe or clog up a pump. Because sewage doesn’t stop, if the pipe is blocked or the pump is broken, that sewage will back up until it comes out somewhere. That could be a manhole in the road, or somebody’s toilet or sink in their house.
One thing to bear in mind, at least in the UK, is the size of your sewer pipes coming from your home. Normally, they’re only about 10cm wide! It doesn’t take much to clog them up. When we talk about blocked pipes, we’re almost always talking about these little pipes. It’s not often that the monster “fatbergs” you might have heard of happen.
1) ‘Do not flush’ wipes. Hopefully nice and simple, they don’t break apart! Often (but not always) have plastic fibres holding it all together. Those fibres snag on things in the sewer pipes (remember, there’s all sorts of nasty things in there the wipe could get caught on!). Once one gets stuck, then another gets stuck on that one, and another, until the pipe is blocked. Even if it does get the whole way through the pipes and the pumping station to the sewage treatment works, there’s a whole bunch of really expensive infrastructure right at the entrance to the treatment works which basically act as a giant sieve to catch all the wipes and other bits, and put them into skips. At one treatment works in London, almost 1000 tons per month is taken out like this.
2) ‘Flushable’ wipes. Quite often, these aren’t flushable in the way I described above and are just ‘Do not flush’ wipes in disguise! Like a lot of people have mentioned here, they’ll get down your toilet but not much further. ‘Flushable’ isn’t a protected term, so can just be slapped on anything. The Advertising Standards Authority have chosen not to get involved here. Fortunately, at least in the UK, this is becoming rarer. They still exist, but not as much as they did 10 years ago.
3) ‘Fine to Flush’ wipes. This is a real UK standard! Its fancy name is “WIS 4-02-06” and is agreed by the UK Water Industry. It’s not perfect though. Because it’s a voluntary standard, and not something forced by Government, we had to compromise on the standard. If we went for full flushable standard, it was unlikely that the wet wipe manufacturers would actually sign up to it. So it was made a little less strict so that manufacturers actually did make ‘Fine to Flush’ wipes. They’re better than “Do not Flush” wipes, but they’re still not quite flushable – they should only be flushed one-at-a-time, and even then can still block pipes. For example, these wipes must be plastic-free. So this is still a really good way to buy wipes if you’re trying to reduce your plastic use!
Because of the issues with the ‘Fine to Flush’ standard, [it’s being cancelled](https://www.water.org.uk/news-views-publications/news/fine-flush-certification-end) by March 2024.
This means that, in the UK, there will not be **any** wipes certified as flushable. The Water Industry, and now the UK Government, are behind the [“Bin the Wipe” campaign](https://www.binthewipe.org/).
Some water companies now have teams who are putting [pointy things in sewers](https://www.nwg.co.uk/news-and-media/news-releases/porcupine-is-coming-to-sniff-out-wipe-offenders—and-its-bringing-some-new-friends/) to catch wipes in places where they get a lot of blockages and find out where they’re coming from so they can talk to the right people.
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