Water UK – the trade body representing all of the main water and sewerage companies in the UK, recently reported that wipes make up 93% of the materials that cause sewer blockages. Therefore here at Metro Rod we’d like to encourage people to pay attention to what they are putting down their drains!
You will no doubt have heard about the fatbergs being found in city sewers, with one of the worst recently totalling the length of two football pitches and weighing in at the same as 11 double decker buses! These are being created because people are disposing of fat and grease down their drains, and wipes down their toilets. When the fat and grease cools as it travels down the pipes, it congeals, and when mixed with non-biodegradable products such as wipes, an inevitable build up commences.
It was estimated by Euromonitor that we use between 1,500 and 2,250 baby wipes per child from the day they are born to the age of three. And it’s not just baby wipes that are the culprits, but also the more recent trend for anti-bac, floor, glass, leather, make-up – you name it, if it’s something you can clean, there will be a wipe for the job, and these wipes are then all too often simply flushed down the loo!
Peter Molloy, Managing Director for Metro Rod – one of the UK’s leading drain repair and maintenance companies, comments, “Our engineers deal with blockages caused in this way up and down the country every day, and it only seems to be getting worse! We are obviously able to deal with this kind of blockage using techniques such as high-pressure jetting to clear any build up, and even drainage repair if necessary, but we’d also like to help educate the nation and try to lessen the damage caused in this way!
“This is also costing the UK’s economy a huge amount to deal with, not to mention the inconvenience and potential health risks caused by drain blockages and overflows, so we urge you all to ensure you put wipes straight into the bin after use, and any fat, oil or grease into a container before also disposing of into the bin!” concludes Peter.
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