Sales of flushable wipes have soared past 6 billion dollars, that’s a lot of wipes being flushed down the toilet every day! Fact is, flushable wipes do indeed flush down the toilet, just as they are designed to. The problem with flushable wipes start after you have flushed them down the toilet.
Some basics you should know:
Toilet paper is designed to work while it’s “dry” and begins to disintegrate as soon as it gets wet; take a wad of toilet paper (preferably clean…), get it wet and try to wipe the mirror with it. You’ll see it will fall apart in your hand.
Flushable wipes on the other hand are designed to work when they are “wet,” and do not disintegrate when they get wet at the same rate toilet paper does. Hence the problem.
Both toilet paper and flushable wipes will flush down most of today’s modern low flow toilets just as the manufactures claim. But once the wipes get past the toilet they are very, very, very slow to disintegrate. In fact, because they are designed to “work” when they are wet, the disintegrate extremely slowly because water does not break them down as aggressively as it destroys toilet paper.
So while the wipes will flush down the toilet, they can get stuck at turns in the pipes, stuck on dried food in the pipes, stuck on anything protruding from the pipe, and they reak havoc on pumps, filters, septic systems, etc.
Bottom Line: Do yourself a favor, don’t flush flushable wipes.
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