Fatberg alert: Be careful about what you flush
If you’re making a New Year’s resolution, promise yourself to stop putting grease down the drain and using your toilet as a garbage can.
Pipe-clogging fats, oil and grease can lead to blocked pipes, basement flooding, sewage backups and expensive repairs in your own house and in the municipal pipes and wastewater systems.
They’re called fatbergs and you may recall reading about some massive ones in Britain including one in 2017 that weighed the same as 11 double decker buses and was more than twice the length of two Wembley Stadium fields. Closer to home, there’s part of a 100-footlong Michigan fatberg that was discovered last year in a Macomb County sewer that’s on display at the Michigan Science Center.
The fats cool — think of the white blobs that form in the juice from a roast — and clog pipes especially as they gather other garbage like baby wipes that shouldn’t be flushed.
“You’ll get a big ball of mess,” said Dan Rawlins, a local senior operations manager with the Ontario Clean Water Agency.
The Ontario Clean Water Agency and the Clean Water Foundation worked with the Town of Lasalle, the Regional Municipality of York, the Region of Peel, the Niagara Region, the City of Barrie and the Town of Bradford West Gwillimbury with its 2019 I Don’t Flush campaign.
They came up with a bunch of humorous videos and information at www.idontflush.ca to try to get people to only flush what they call No. 1, No. 2 and toilet paper.
Canadian municipalities spend more than $250 million a year removing garbage from sewer systems, according to the Municipal Enforcement Sewer Use Group, and those costs include removing fatbergs of meat fats, cooking oils, salad dressings, gravies and dairy products.
Rawlins said Lasalle alone spends about $50,000 a year removing these fats, oils and grease at pumping stations and every municipality faces similar bills. The problem is the fatbergs form and can clog pipes at pumping stations that are supposed to be pumping sewage to a wastewater treatment plant. The largest fatberg Rawlins has seen in a pumping station well was about eight to 10 feet across and four inches thick, he said.
“Every municipality has this problem.”
Rawlins said people like to think “out of sight, out of mind” but that’s not true. Putting some hot water down the drain doesn’t stop the problem, he said. Collect the fat and when it cools, put it in the garbage.
London has a pilot project where residents use biodegradable cups to collect grease and then drop them off at Envirodepots.
“Treating your sinks and toilets like trash cans can have major consequences,” said Amy Lane, the Ontario Clean Water Agency’s manager of marketing and communications.
“Can you imagine coming home to sewage backup in your basement because your pipes are clogged with grease, wipes or feminine hygiene products? This doesn’t have to happen,” Lane said in a news release that promoted not only avoiding costly repairs for homes and municipalities but also to reduce environmental damage.
Flushing personal hygiene products such as feminine hygiene products, cotton swabs and dental floss or wipes, even the ones labelled as flushable, can clog pipes and lead to issues in your home and in the municipal wastewater system.
Don’t put household hazardous waste such as automobile care products down drains and don’t flush medicines or vitamins. Drop them off at a pharmacy for proper disposal.