FATBERGS

I agree, we had a hugevehicle with the staff to remove fatbergs from some of the drains- naturally this was on the 23rd and 24th of December. I call this area nappy valley for obvious reasons. Half the problem is that a few of the houses are rented so these folk do not care. End of rant.

I made three dozen bird seed balls the other day from all the fat I saved up over xmas. It soon mounts up. Grilling sausages, bacon and chicken, roasting beef and pork, every scrap was saved. I expect I have very heavy bluetits.

One of our neighbours put wetwipes down the loo and blocked the sewer pipes. The smell was awful!

Being out the loop nowadays on this one, do people see notices in nurersies about this?
Is the information in bounty packs, and given out by midwives etc?

In other words, do people know and still do it anyway?
Or do they have a lack of information and so do not know?

Whilst some might do it by mistake I think most are simply lazy. It's easier to drop a wetwipe down the toilet than dispose of it some other way.

It may not be the same goes for fat though. Did we learn about it in school cookery lessons or from our mums? Girls don't seem to have that experience anymore so they may not realise that flushing it down the plug hole with hot water may save their pipes but sooner or later the fat will set.

Can't the wet wipes go in the dirty nappy and disposed of the way the nappies are disposed of. I'm sure my DD did this when DGS was a baby.

Yes but they use them for other things too. DDs use them for wiping DGCs faces and hands so they don't always have a nappy to wrap them in. I use them when we've had picnics with younger DC and have a pack in the car.

I live at the end of a sewer system and had the long run to the road under my driveway. I used to get the annual job on unblocking it, primarily due to wipes. No one ever volunteered to help r admitted putting them down, Glad to say that Anglian Water are not responsible for clearing it.

Pompa We had exactly the same thing.

Vampirequeen That's no excuse though is it ? Pop them in a bag and throw them away at home.

No, definitely not an excuse. Just laziness. We take ours home or find a bin btw.

I think a lot of it is laziness. I was at a friends house and she was about to pour a pan full of fat down the sink. When I tried to stop her she said she couldn't be bothered to pour it into a container and wait for it to set and that if she poured hot water and washing up liquid after it then it would be OK!

We had a blockage in the road outside our house some years ago now and when the workmen cleared it they reported that part of the problem had been caused by large quantities of condoms. We all got some very funny looks I can tell you. Not Guilty M'Lud.

lol ann sixty! Can't understand why the councils don't spend more money on educating people on the issue- as constantly clearing fatbergs costs an absolute fortune! And also put more pressure on manufacturers- as a large % of wet wipes packs clearly say they are flushable. They should have large print stating that they are NOT.

Same for nappies! Why on earth would people put nappies down the loo though? I'd understand here where I live, as we pay for refuse per weight (bags are weighed at the large communal bin, which open with a credit card type thing, and then the weight put towards your council account)- and in some areas here people are only allowed to use official local council bags, which they have to pay for (about 80p to £1 a large bin bag). But in the UK? all you have to do is put in your bin, no?

Here there is a real movement for real nappies, for that reason. The weight of a wet nappy X by the number per week is huge.

I think part of the problem, re nappies, is if you have several young children, and only one bin that gets emptied every fortnight, you have a real problem on your hands. Some years ago people were being fined because they had too much rubbish and were subsidising their bins with black plastic sacks and foxes were getting into them - you can imagine the mess and smell. So mothers with several young children were resorting to flushing the nappies away. It's all very well saying go to the nearest recycling centre, but which young mum is going to manage to haul a pushchair, baby and large smelly black bin bag on the bus. Some buses go sailing past young mums with pushchairs if the pushchair slot is already taken, as it is.

Just remembered - when we lived in a town 15 years ago I once caught a young mother trying to sneak her rubbish into my bin!

We had some problems in our road ( a new build development) and the builders came back and made some alterations to the drains but they told us the problem here was not nappy wet wipes but wet facial tissues!!!

oh and cotton wool.

janerowena, I sympathise. Mind you, there are NO collections here whatsoever- all rubbish and all recycling have to be taken to the frequently place moloks (huge sunk into the ground bins which are emptied by special truck with lift). None- no-one has bins here. At first, people were horrified, but most people have cars, and neighbours help each other. I totally appreciate that in a ciny area this may wll be very different- absolutely.

Two results: a return to terry nappies - but the modern shaped ones, with a liner- which are great. And also concentrated the mind of young mums who tended to potty-train later and later- to potty train toddler earlier again. People here are amazed to learn how late toddlers are potty-trained in the UK, with many kids not being dry (and not special need children) by the time they start school.

Interesting how people can react with positive changes when faced with a difficult situation, or not.

Often discussed the above with UK friends- and their reaction is that in the UK this would result in more and more rubbish being dumped in countryside- and sadly, having lived near a country lane that led to beautiful countryside from town- I think that is true. Really glad to say this has not happened here. Pheeew.

Yes, I have seen that dumping going on from time to time.

Parties are another problem. DBH went to collect DS from his Uni house and on arrival was confronted by 5 pleading faces and 30 sacks of empties! The entire semester's worth of 'party bags' student-style. He took them all to the tip in two loads (not easy in Cambridge with all the xmas traffic) and gave them all a lecture, none of them had realised that they couldn't add to the recycling already in the bin and the recycling centre was so far away that they knew they would never make it without bags splitting/potentially drivers not allowing them on the bus etc.

DBH drove around and found them a carpark with recycling facilities, hopefully they will use it in future!

The wet wipes marketed for adults to thoroughly cleanse their rear ends are sold as flushable, but they are not.

I must admit that it was only relatively recently that I realised that you couldn't put cotton wool or tissues down the loo. And my daughter had problems with her drains at when she had her first child because she'd been putting wipes down the toilet. I don't know why we were both so ignorant about it; seems so obvious now. I bet all these house cleaning wipes are causing no end of problems as well. I noticed those adult wet wipes in the supermarked the other day as well with a big sign on them saying flushable. I'm totally paranoid these days about what goes down the sink or loo. The S.O. tends to put hot water into a frying pan when he uses one even though I've told him to wipe it with kitchen roll first to get rid of all of the grease.

I'm always careful not to put wet wipes, kitchen roll etc. down the loo, but had thought tissues were OK. Aren't they made of the same stuff as toilet paper?

They certainly seem to disintegrate spectacularly if they get in the washing machine by accident!

Don't people have bins in their bathrooms for the facial wipes/wetwipes etc?
Ana, tissues are made stronger , as is kitchen roll than loo roll, although the padded type loo roll once blocked my daughter's drains.

Charleygirl Maybe you have a problem with rented accommodation in your area not caring but I live in rented and I dispose of wipes/fat in the correct manner and always have done.

Maybe we should just get back to hand washing instead of so many wipes being used? These things along with disposable nappies are going to take an age to decompose. Are we really doing the children whose nappies we are changing any good when we are ruining their planet?