Not good for plumbing in NYC

Paul Pollets

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/nyregion/the-wet-wipes-box-says-flush-but-the-new-york-city-sewer-system-says-dont.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

KC_Jones

Those dumb things clogged a toilet in my house to the point of needing a snake and then clogged up my main sewer line which also needed snaked and cleaned. As far as I am concerned they are evil and should never be flushed no matter what the label says. My wife didn't listen until we had all the problems. I don't even allow "quilted" TP in the house.

HydroNiCK

bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/23586290

FranklinD

I remember reading about the 'fatberg' in London. It's an ongoing issue in our city too. They regularly muck up our screen belt filter press. The amount of solids removed per day has risen a lot... They used to run one dump truck load of solids to the landfill, over the last 5 years it's increased to 3 loads per day.

Only 'regular' TP gets flushed at our house. No quilted stuff and certainly no wipes. My reasoning wasn't because of the effect at the treatment plant... It is (selfishly) due to my concern over my 100 year old cast iron sewer lateral that I just found out is 200' long. Don't want to have to clean It OR dig it up.

RobG

My wife (and my butt) will settle for nothing less than quilted paper at home. I've never had a problem except with feminine products and wipes. Sewer incidents only seem to happen when I have guests, imagine that!

Jamie Hall

I used to have a saying... if it can be flushed, it will be flushed. Unless you've worked with sewers or a treatment plant, you have no idea...

You should see what a pair of panty hose can do to a big centrifugal pump, for instance!

SWEI

I just hauled a T-shirt with latex paint blotches on it out of the main line on our house. Apparently one of the painters let it fall in the soil pipe while we were doing the rehab. Took my plumber 3 different pulls with the big drain machine to clear it.

bricksea

Grease mixed with coffee grounds makes a mortar that a mason would be proud of.

EBEBRATT-Ed

I have a ton of respect for all you guys that are Plumbers. I'm just glad I am not one.LOL

Hilly

It's not the questionable 'flushables' that I find funny. It's the things that people drop in the toilet by mistake and don't have the stomach to retrieve so they flush it.
Pulled an nail poslish, box of tissue - yup a box, loads of access cards and employee id's in commercial buildings.

Hilly

Our treatment plant went online a few years back. First day there was a shutdown - A set of Dentures were pulled. Yes sir a perfect set of chompers.

icesailor

"If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat."

"If you didn't eat it first, don't flush it down".

vaporvac

I think that's why my mom always told us to close the lid!

icesailor

Respect your mother and all the other ladies in the house.

JUGHNE

In one of the trade magazines there recently was a story of a problem sewer line with blockage. The camera man found a baseball bat lying in the horizontal run to the city sewer. With the camera and hooks it was removed. It was thought to have been purposely placed in there on the rough-in.

One time I pulled out a toothbrush with a closet auger, the 3 adults that lived there at the time were not home for this. I told them I just rinsed it off and put it back in the toothbrush holder. I'm really sure they all brought new toothbrushes that day.

Harvey Ramer

I once pulled chopsticks out of a lavatory drain.....

I don't know either...

Mark Eatherton

If you ever get an opportunity to visit a large sewage treatment plant, don't pass it up.

Amazing what they find in their primary screens. False teeth as Hilly noted, usually lost in the course of power projectile vomiting. Most don't realize they lost their teeth until its too late. And the grease coagulation room gives grease ball a new meaning...

Also guns, glasses, whole wallets, small animals, and you should see the condoms. They had to develop a rake to control the rubber.

Here in Denver, their anerobic digester creates enough flammable gas that they run electrical generators (recip. engines) and they have excess electricity that they sell or trade back to the electric utility. Sewage treatment is very energy intensive. I am also aware of plants that recover the heat from the raw sewage and use that for treating conditioned spaces. They go through a lot of hot water cleaning things up.

People know where their water comes from, but have no idea where it goes after they flush it down the drain. Eye opening for sure.

Imagine being an underwater pump mechanic that dives in this muck to repair them? Pays REAL well.

The sign in my mountain home (Septic/leach field)) reads "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If its' brown, flush it down. The fish thank you for conserving their water."

I like the mantra above of "If you didn't eat it (or drink it) don't flush it..."

ME

JUGHNE

Any time spent in third world countries make one aware of the necessity of sewage treatment. And for sure you appreciate what we have here. We spent 3 weeks in a fair sized town in Thailand a few years ago. Plenty of time to walk around. Our hotel was not a tourist hotel but one where the natives would stay. The storm drains were combo with sewer drains. About every 300' there was a open grate/manhole that you could view the flow. So when it was not monsoon season it was obvious there was not enough water flow to clean the system. The pipe was roughly 2' square cement poured raceway. So before the big rains come, (when we were there) the cleaner crews would scrap the sludge out of tunnels and load it into barrels to be hauled to the treatment plant. Which was across the street from our hotel so I could view the entire process. The treatment plant discharge went into the sea, this was noticeable by the water being quite darker on this unused beach. Again we were not in a tourist hotel. One portion of sewer raceway was used to house a 6" water main up to the Hilton Hotel on the hill. (Why dig up the street twice?) You don't drink the water anywhere there and not know it the next day.
We had coffee at the Hilton every morning (real coffee) and in visiting with a couple staying there they complained of lack of hot water in their room. We never had that problem because of an instantaneous electric water heater located right in our shower, yes you could set your soap on top of it! The hand spray hose came right out the bottom of it .
A great place to visit.

Charlie from wmass

Try the sink that the nic little old lady faithfully used every morning to dispose of the two egg shells she made for her and her husband through the disposal, for 12 years. The line was PVC and had a very slight back pitch to it from new. Less than 1" in 20', but backwards just the same. I ended up cutting out 4' of pipe to clear the blockage and 4" of pipe off the drop to get the pitch on the 15' run.

4Johnpipe

Found this a few weeks ago...

Patchogue Phil_2

The "personal wipes" we use ( Kirkland aka Costco brand), breakup into thin slurry like wet toilet paper. No worse than toilet paper itself.

jumper

YMCA in Toronto recovers heat from shower drain. Strainers catch large objects. Maybe you can flush stuff but how do those objects go down shower drains?