Fredericton warns residents about flushing wipes

Fredericton engineers are asking homeowners to stop flushing wipes down their toilets as the convenient cloths are clogging the sewage system and costing taxpayers thousands of dollars.

Products, such as baby wipes and household cleaning cloths, have soared in popularity in recent years.

Neil Thomas, a water and sewer engineer in Fredericton, said the city began to receive calls in the last five years about problems with their pipes.

Thomas said the culprit behind the clogged pipes often turned out to be wipes and the problem has become more acute in the last two years.

“They are very convenient, a great product, however the issue is that people seem to think that you can put them into the toilet and they magically go away,” Thomas said.

“In spite of a number of the manufacturers’ claims, unlike toilet paper, these wipes do not break down and they can literally survive months in the sewage system.”

The wipes end up clogging residential and business systems, but they also create problems for municipal sewer pipes and the city’s 30 lift stations.

They can also prevent sewage lagoons from properly treating waste water.

These flushed wipes aren't just a nuisance for city engineers, they turn into a costly expense for the water and sewage utility and eventually, taxpayers.

Thomas said city crews went to a station in the Garden Creek area to clean up a sewage facility.

“We went in there to remove wipes and we believe it or not, we removed 3.5 metric tons of wipes and it cost us $28,000 to do it,” he said.

Clogging wipes is not just a problem in Fredericton. It's been estimated that Canadian municipalities spend $250 million a year to deal with the problems caused by these wipes.

The city says only human waste and toilet paper should be flushed, while wipes should be put in the garbage.