Clogging the System: The Feud Over Flushable Wipes


Olde Hornet

Well-Known Member

In the basement of the Center for Urban Innovation at Ryerson University in Toronto, a lone toilet sits on a raised, tiled platform. Darko Joksimovic, an associate professor of civil engineering, drops a clean bathroom wipe into the bowl and flushes. It swims down a 66-foot pipeline that includes two 90-degree turns and clears it in one go.

He then collects the soggy material and drops it into something called a slosh box. This clear tank agitates a gallon of water at a gentle 18 revolutions per minute for 30 minutes. When that’s done, Joksimovic rinses the wipe over a sieve with inch-wide holes for a minute. The material left on the sieve’s surface gets baked in an oven, and then weighed.

If 95 percent of the material slips away through the holes, Joksimovic will rate it as flushable.

This particular test is on a private-label wipe from a Canadian drug store chain. Only 13 percent of the wipe, which is labeled flushable and designed to be used in the bathroom instead of toilet paper, dispersed after this one-hour test. “It fails,” he says. “Everyone claims their products are flushable. What we are doing is testing these claims.”

Barry Orr, sewer outreach and control inspector for the city of London in Ontario, says many personal wipes don’t fall apart in sewers and can twist and become stronger, clogging pipes and sewer pumps, while attracting other materials to them, creating so-called fatbergs — congealed masses of flushed items that float, destructively, through sewers
 
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:D

Luckily, witch hazel is cheap.

Cheaper than a plumber.

Less hassle than having to deal with a bunch of women in a house with a busted plumbing system.

Choose your battles wisely. lol
Truer words have not been spoken. I have pulled the toilet in the hall bathroom three times in the last 45 days. Rented a drain snakes from Home Depot each time. I’m handy, but I prefer spending my weekends smoking brisket and drinking beer. I’ve outlawed wipes in my house. I guess I need to search amazon for bulk witch hazel.
 
I know what witch hazel is but never understood its use(s).
It's an astringent cleaner. My first exposure to it was back in 1991, my roommate at a summer Math and Science program (Jackson State) used it to clean his face. Geeky bastard had the worst case of acne I've ever seen.
 
It's an astringent cleaner. My first exposure to it was back in 1991, my roommate at a summer Math and Science program (Jackson State) used it to clean his face. Geeky bastard had the worst case of acne I've ever seen.
That is what I thought but what does it have to do with clogged toilets?
 
I think the idea is to use witch hazel with regular toilet paper to get the same effect as a wipe. We know regular toilet paper is flushable. Breaks down much more readily than wipes. Better for the plumbing system.

People who feel the need to use a wipe can continue their routine. Fewer headaches for people responsible for keeping the plumbing working. Win-win for everybody.
@Herbert77060 knows the deal, he intentionally plays the babe in woods role... boredom during the COVID-19 crisis problems.
 
I think the idea is to use witch hazel with regular toilet paper to get the same effect as a wipe. We know regular toilet paper is flushable. Breaks down much more readily than wipes. Better for the plumbing system.

People who feel the need to use a wipe can continue their routine. Fewer headaches for people responsible for keeping the plumbing working. Win-win for everybody.
Ahhhhhhhhh...thanks for making it plain. I was thinking he was pouring like draino
 
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