COOKING fats, oils and greases washed down the plughole and sanitary waste and wipes, known as ‘unflushables’, are responsible for thousands of avoidable sewer blockages each year. They lead to nasty smells, or worse still, flooding in homes and gardens and sewage spills into local rivers and waterways.
More than half of the 30,000 blockages Anglian Water clears each year are caused in this way and cost the company over £7 million a year to put right.
Why are fats and unflushables a problem? Once they have been put down the sink or loo they don’t disintegrate like toilet paper. They stick together and block our drains and sewers, our underground arteries, causing rock-hard ‘fatbergs’ that can cause sewers to back up and overflow.
There are an estimated 20,000 tonnes of Fats, Oils and Greases (FOG) in our sewer network at anyone time – that’s around eight Olympic swimming pools of fat. Most of this comes from the homes of our six million customers, with people washing a small amount down drains and often not realising the impact this has on the whole network when it combines and congeals.
Unflushables, namely wipes, represent a big problem too. Unfortunately, even some wipes labelled flushable or biodegradable don’t break up fast enough to make it through the water recycling process.
Today, one in every two adults in the UK purchases some kind of wipe. Cleansing wipes are the most common with over 10 million users – exceeding the number of people using baby wipes. Add to these, the multitude of other types of wipes from surface anti-bacterial to floor wipes and toilet specific products and it’s easy to see why these have become a problem if flushed down the loo.
Wipes, sanitary waste and fats, oils and grease all build up over time and cause blocked pumps, as well as pipes, stopping water flowing freely.
When a pump gets clogged, like these, sewage can back up into homes and overflow into our rivers. Repairing or replacing pumps can add considerable expense on customers’ water bills too.
This is made even worse by the many other items wrongly flushed, or fly-tipped, down drains; we’ve found the following in our sewers:
False teeth
Mobile phones
Wedding rings
Bits of an awning
Full, dirty nappies
Even prosthetic limbs!
We even rescued a live Terrapin from our Water Recycling Centre. He’d been flushed and sadly didn’t make it at the Aquarium we took him to.
In 2011 we launched the HYPERLINK "http://www.keep-it-clear.co.uk/" o "http://www.keep-it-clear.co.uk/" t "_blank" ‘Keep It Clear’ campaign to work with customers and businesses to achieve dramatic reductions in these avoidable blockages.
The campaign encourages everyone to make small change at home to help stop this very big and expensive problem, while helping to protect the environment.
Customers and businesses are encouraged to follow a few simple steps, such as:
Let fat in baking trays cool before scraping it into the bin
Put any food leftovers, into the bin or recycle them at home or at your local household waste recycling centre
Order a free sink strainer from Anglian Water via the Keep It Clear website
Give crockery, pans and tins a quick wipe with kitchen towel before loading the dishwasher or doing the washing up to remove greases
Put a bin in the bathroom for wipes, cotton wool, floss, cotton buds and sanitary products
Use bags or toilet paper to discreetly dispose of sanitary products in the bin
The Keep it Clear pilot campaign in Peterborough has achieved a sustained 82 per cent per cent reduction in FOG and wipe related blockages, significantly reducing the possibility of flooding.
Since then Anglian Water has run subsequent successful campaigns in Bedford, Cambridge, Southend and other towns across the Anglian region, helping reduce sewer blockages by an average of 50 per cent in these targeted locations.
With peoples help, by disposing of wipes and unflushable items in the bin, we can protect our rivers, wildlife and the environment and keep the sewer system clear to do its job of taking sewage away from homes and businesses.
For more information and tips visit HYPERLINK "http://keep-it-clear.co.uk"
