Old wet wipes feared to be changing shape of riverbeds

WET wipes are impacting the shape of British riverbeds, campaigners have warned, after retrieving more than 5,000 of them from the Thames in an area the size of half a tennis court.

Environmental organisation Thames 21, which works to clean up rivers and canals, revealed it had collected 5,453 wet wipes during a haul last month in 1,250 sq ft of the Thames embankment near Hammersmith.

More worryingly, the collection was an increase of nearly a thousand over last year’s total which took place on a larger area of river bank.

Kirsten Downer, a group member, told The Guardian: “You need to go at low tide to see the mounds forming. The Thames riverbed is changing. Wet wipes are accumulating on the riverbed and affecting the shape of the riverbed. It looks natural but when you get close you can see that these clumps are composed of wet wipes mixed with twigs and mud.”

Last year it was revealed by Water UK, the body representing the UK’S water and sewerage companies, that wet wipes made up 93 per cent of the material causing blockages. Thames 21 is working alongside City to Sea to raise awareness of the scale of the problem.

“We want people to realise that this is not just happening on the Thames, but on rivers and canals all round the country,” said Ms Downer. “All the time we were working, people kept coming to ask what we were doing. People are far more upset and concerned about the plastics problem than they ever have been.”

Ms Downer cautioned against throwing wipes down the lavatory, saying that people wrongly flush them away without realising the environmental damage this can cause. Wet wipes are usually made of a fabric such as cotton woven together with plastic resins such as polyester or polypropylene, which are not biodegradable