You found down the drain?
NORTHUMBRIAN Water engineers have been busy since the coronavirus outbreak.
And since the start of the lockdown alone, the water company has discovered all manner of objects seemingly flushed down the toilet.
Almost two thirds of the incidents are caused by wet wipes but sometimes the offending blockage is altogether stranger.
In recent weeks, a dead flat fish, a hard boiled egg and a small unopened tin of peaches have all been pulled out of people’s plumbing.
A toy centipede was discovered in the pipes on one occasion, while a model car was also found to be causing a blockage at another incident.
A cut-up bed sheet, a pair of socks, some tights and a pink towel have also caused problems.
It’s not hard to see how a troublesome air freshener might have ended up down there – but the potato discovered on another call out begs several questions.
Simon Cyhanko, head of wastewater networks at Northumbrian Water, said:
“It’s beyond belief some of the weird things our teams uncover in our sewer network and we sometimes wonder what people are thinking.
“We know accidents can happen and items get flushed by mistake, but sadly, some customers are using their toilet as a bin to flush things that have no place in our network. Although we find lots of different items in our sewers, the main cause of blockages is wet wipes.
“Wipes and other items may leave your toilet bowl when flushed, but can clog up your plumbing and cause avoidable plumber call-out charges. Even biodegradable products don’t break down as quickly as toilet paper and can linger in sewer pipes, contributing to blockages.
“Blockages can have heartbreaking consequences, from causing people’s homes to be flooded with toilet waste to the environment being polluted. It’s really not nice to see. Customers can help by making one simple change and that’s to not use toilets as a bin. Please put all wipes in the bin and support our campaign to Bin The Wipe.”
It costs around £1m every year to deal with blockages – and 64% of the 15,681 blockages cleared by Northumbrian Water in 2019 were caused by wet wipes.