Wipes: good for your bum, bad for your plumb

Oh wipes! You and your wonderfully wicked ways! You warrior of baby bottoms, spilled-on surfaces, and Monday’s makeup. You offer so many comforts and yet, you are capable of so much destruction. I mean, what is your deal? Some of you say you’re flushable, some of you say in teeny tiny print on the back, “non-flushable,” with a barely there graphic of a figure flushing wipes inside a circle with a line through it. Pick a team!

When I present to kids, I always ask, “can you flush wipes?” And many shout in unison, “NO!” But there’s always one—you know, that one kid who questions you relentlessly throughout your presentation—who says, “well, if the label says flushable, then you CAAAAAN flush them.” Great segue, smarty pants! I then place two cups filled with water in front of each kid. I ask them to take a few squares of toilet paper and one wipe and place them in the separate cups. “Those are toilets and we’re going to do a flush test,” I say, and they all yell, “gross!” Man, do I love my job.

Next I have them stir and agitate the toilet paper with a spoon to simulate a flush. I ask them for a play-by-play. “It’s falling apart.” “It’s disappearing.” “It’s getting glubby,” as my daughter would say. Oh, it’s glubby, girl! The toilet paper is breaking down, just as it should be. After just a few swirls of the spoon, you’re left with the artist formerly known as toilet paper. You’re left with an unsanitary snow globe. You’re left with pulp non-fiction. Even that fancy quilted stuff with the bears breaks down like this. It’s truly a glorious sight!

Ok, kids. Now, swirl the wipe around. “Nothing’s happening, Ms. Jenny.” “Keep stirring, children.” “Still nothing.” “Keep stirring.” “This wipe must not be flushable,” says relentless question asker. I then tell them I’m going to perform a magic trick and I ask for the magic words. “Abracadabra!” I very dramatically plunge my hand in, grab the wipe, squeeze it, and unravel it to reveal…it looks exactly the same as it did before we flushed it. You could practically reuse it. “Ewwwww, grrrrossssss!”

Moral of this story: no matter what the label says, NEVER flush wipes. Ever. Like ever.

Truth is, wipes ARE flushable. But, so are lots of things. Like a twenty dollar bill, for instance. Or my wedding ring. Not to compare wipes to my sacred nuptials with Mr. Tomes, but I could absolutely flush my wedding ring into the great wide “away,” never to be seen again.

The real question is, will the wipe, the twenty, or the ring break down and biodegrade in our sewer system like toilet paper does? Not any time soon, henny!

And that’s the difference. That’s why toilet paper is king in this game of thrones. It breaks down, whereas wipes simply do not. They may eventually, but not like King T.P. So, bend the knee!

After a flush, the wipe wiggles its way down into your home’s sewer pipe, which leads to one of three possible systems: septic, low-pressure (a.k.a. grinder, a.k.a. the green lid, a.k.a. blades of glory), or gravity. Septic owners know that wipes wreak havoc and forcibly remove any house guest who dare flush one. The grinder folk have probably experienced their alarm sounding as the blades fail to break down the moist menace. And gravity—this is the abyss, the great unknown, the “away.” If you’re on gravity, those wipes have a better chance at entering the sewer system to team up with other like-minded villainous flushed debris. It’s as if they magnetize as they hit the water and cling together to form some sort of impenetrable force field.

This juggernaut enters your friendly neighborhood lift station. It makes trouble. It roughs up some infrastructure. Sometimes it moves on, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s fickle. From there, let’s say it decides to make its way to a booster pump station. Again, fickle. If those stations can’t be victorious in stopping this gross goblin, it will surely enter the wastewater treatment plant. And do you know what happens there? All the garbage is sifted out and removed from the wastewater. And guess where all the garbage goes—juggernaut wipe wad included?!? To the landfill! Yep, the dump! The Florida mountain!

Do me a favor. Skip the middle man, and throw wipes away.

I’m not saying don’t use ‘em—we do in my house, I don’t judge. Just throw them away.

Send them on the path of least resistance and just throw them away.

Save your pipes, our sewer system, lift stations, booster pump stations, and wastewater treatment plants and just throw them away.

And one more time, for the seats in the back! Just. Throw. Them. Away!

And only flush the three P’s: pee, poo, and paper.

All hail King T.P.! Until you install that bidet.

Watch this flush test and see for yourself how toilet paper and wipes compare.