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THE GOVERNMENT HAS NO plans as of yet to ban wet wipes, but Irish Water has said that the practice of flushing them down toilets is “unfortunately commonplace” and can cause “severe blockages” in the sewer system.
Earlier this week, the UK government announced plans to eliminate plastic use which includes “single use products like wet wipes”, the BBC reported.
Wet wipes have been identified by Water UK as causing 93% of blockages in UK sewers, and a key element of the notorious fatbergs that often create giant obstacles underground.
A common problem is the flushing of the wipes, which contain non-biodegradable plastic. Other commonly used plastics are also under the microscope, with Westport announcing plans to become the first town in Ireland to eradicate plastic straws.
In a statement to TheJournal.ie, a spokesperson for Irish Water said that the practice of flushing baby wipes and other sanitary items down the toilet happens often around the country and “can cause severe problems for the wastewater network”.
“Among the most commonly flushed items are baby wipes, cotton wool buds, cleansing pads, cigarettes and even nappies,” the spokesperson said.
These items should not be in our sewer networks. When they are flushed down the toilet, they can stick together and cause severe blockages in the sewer network and at the wastewater treatment plant.
Irish Water said that these items can combine with fats, oils and greases to create blockages in our sewers, although fatbergs like those seen in the UK are rare.
The spokesperson added: “[This] can build up over time, leading to blockages in sewer networks, which can also result in flooding. Clearing these blockages in the public network is costly and time-consuming.”
Comment on the UK move, the Green Party in Ireland said it would be in favour of a ban on wet wipes here.
Party leader Eamon Ryan told TheJournal.ie: “We would support a ban on wet wipes, as part of a wider range of measures to cut down on single use plastic use and plastic pollution.
There are low and zero waste alternatives to wet wipes – the damage they cause wastewater treatment systems and the marine environment is avoidable.
Ryan said that many individuals and businesses are already taking action to cut out single use plastics, like coffee cups, but that the environmentally friendly option should be made the default under law.
In a statement to TheJournal.ie, the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment did not say it had any plans for the banning on wet wipes but would follow closely a planned publication from the EU on plastics.
A spokesperson said: “In terms of banning wet wipes as a general waste, the EU Commission is to publish a range of measures for dealing with single use items containing plastic this month.
The Government must wait to see what is contained in this proposal before making any decisions on banning or placing a levy on any single use item.
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Ireland has a golden opportunity to improve our recycling habits,we could adopt the German model and not export our recycling,teach from a young age the harm we are doing to the planet and embrace banning certain products that are poisoning us..
@David Dineen: We live in Ireland. Forward thinking not encouraged.
@David Dineen: Unfortunately parts of our communities lack the fastidiousness of our German counterparts. You know the types of people who dump their rubbish, toss there litter and generally sponge off society. I do agree they they should be banned (wet wipes pity we cant ban element s of our society). Baby wipes though im sure are flushed by people of all walks of life in this country. Why do most countries laws permit things which are bad for the environment and our infrastructures and facilitate them to be used in such quantities? Im thinking obviously of plastics particular un-recyclables ones, polybeads in scrubs etc. We really are living through our dystopian distruction of our plant through waste, over population and greed.
@Billy Connelly: and embarrassing typos too
@Billy Connelly: Germans export their recycling. It goes to China and they there is no record of what happens. I know someone who visited an electronics recycling facility and all the valuables were scavenged and the rest thrown in a river. There is no accountability. Putting waste in the recycling bin does not mean it is recycled at all.
@Billy Connelly: also, while Germans have a high rate of recycling, due to their high overall consumption they send far more to landfill than countries in Eastern Europe who have low recycling rates but low overall packaging due to low single portion sales and so on. I will post later with the link to the oecd statistics which prove this if you like. Germans are very very very polluting and this is a complete whitewash.
@David Dineen: This is the same Germany that year on year is burning more and more filthy brown coal to generate electricity?
UK leading the way here.
The EU needs to act on plastic waste and packaging.
They can’t be talking about banning baby wipes?!
@Sinead Mooney: yes they do. Too many people flushing them to the toilets, instead of putting them in the bin.
@Vincent: banning baby wipes would be like banning alcohol. I can see me down on Moore St buying them off a van if that happens. Anyone with kids will protest this! There are morons everywhere who litter but we don’t ban food!
@Sinead Mooney: your arguments are way off point. Simple fact is there are other products that can be produced and used instead that break up in a biodegradable way. If people dont use items in a way that is deemed sage en mass then they should rightly be banned. Just to say i have an young child with another on the way. I could easily live without wipes. Thet are the lazy way out if not used and disposed properly
@Sinead Mooney: Yay that’s the attitude! Never mind the planet!
@TheHeathen My god unbelievable isn’t it and a Mother too mind blowing
@Sinead Mooney: That’s got to be the most stupid comment YET my Jayus christ no wonder the planet’s the way it is!!!!!
Eamon Ryan, is he still about? The man who screwed motorists with the dearest road tax in Europe? That Eamon Ryan…thought he hung up his bicycle clips ages ago.
@Gus Sheridan: eh? Tax actually came down for most cars
@Tony Stack: If you wanted to drive a Noddy car
@Gus Sheridan: __ I don’t think Ryan was even born when Irish motorists were getting screwed for motor tax. It’s very cleverly not called “road tax” as that would give people the impression that it’s spent on roads.
@Gus Sheridan: Yeah Yeah HE’S A PARTY LEADER, but he has only one member like a clucker whose hatch of eggs failed and winds up with just one chick ———Still he cackles a lot, makes a lot of useless noise and tries to pretend that he’s important!!
Every time I see the corrupt, utterly pointless fake company “Irish Water” in print, I chuckle. It never gets old.
Seriously what kind of r’tards flush wet wipes!!!!! The few with little brain cells screw everyone with some sense yet again. And I know they bad for planet but they a life saver for when your evil spawn are under 3 years old.
@Paul O’Connor: lots of idiots do
I don’t think the baby wipes are the problem I think it’s the flushable ones are, I can’t understand how you can flush any wipes? I have two kids and never have done.
@Marian Doherty: it’s not the wipes, it’s the idiots who try to flush them. Even the so called flushable wipes do damage.
What about supposedly “flushable” wipes? We used them when toilet training our daughter, they were useful in that scenario. We bin wipes generally.
@Brian Lilly: Manufacturers of wipes need to show on their packaging that wipes are bio-degradable when flushed. Not good enough to say that they can be flushed unless they are also bio-degadable like toilet paper.
Do instead of trying to deal with the culprits somehow, why not just shut a successful Drogheda business down instead? Sounds like something the Greens would be in favour of.
@El Diablo Pollo: how would you propose to deal with the tens of thousands of culprits in this situation?
@David Duffy: I was about to ask the same question – genuinely curious as to what answer comes back :-)
While a recent UK television documentary showed the effects of ‘fatbergs’ clogging up London sewers, it also pointed out that some wipes are not bio-degradable and therefore should not be flushed. Fatbergs are mainly the result of putting waste cooking oil down the drains and as London has thousands of restaurants they need to stop this practice.
I doubt that where we live with its one Chinese takeaway will make much difference in this regard.
@Chris Kirk: we had a massive clog up in a back garden one in a neighbors house and the amount of baby wipes that came out was unreal, amongst other things, people seem to think they can out the kitchen sink in the toilet.
Fix the ducking cervical things first before even laying an eye on this sheit.
Ireland is hy drollixed
@patrickmansfield: You know countries can do more than one thing at once don’t you?
@Michael O’Neill: Some can. Ireland can’t
People who flush baby wipes down the toilet should be tarred and feathered
So it’ll be reusable cloth baby wipes? Bit stinky no?
@Keith: there are biodegradable babywipes
@Keith: we use washable cotton wipes for our kids. Not at all stinky.
@Keith: nope, at least not with newborns. I find they work far better than wet wipes when you use them with warm water. My baby also screams far less during changes because of the warmer temperature. Save you a huge amount of money too.
@Cathal O’Neill: Clean shit!
Biodegradable is the ONLY way forward for current use of wipes, plastic and all packaging.
Try changing a babys nappy without wet wipes. Not easy
@Tony Stack: How did they manage before wet wipes were invented.
@Chris Kirk: indeed, for hundreds of thousands of years, humans had no idea how to keep babies’ bums clean before the advent of baby wipes! =D
To reduce packaging return to the good old days where you bought your fruit,veg ,biscuits,meat loose and put them in your shopping bag.There are a lot of commercial interest involved in the whole recyling business today from paper/cardboard/plastic manufacturers to the recylers.If we adopted our old ways these guys would be out of business
There are some wet wipes that claim on the packet that they are flushable.
The countries with high recycling rates also have the highest consumption so by kilo per person, Germans send nearly the highest amount to landfill. Irish are worse. The best countries are the ones in Eastern Europe with low consumption and recycling rates. Kilo per person to landfill is lowest there.
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Per_capita_volume_of_plastic_packaging_waste_generated_and_recycled,_2010.JPG&oldid=127870
Just ban them: Baby wet wipes ’cause food allergy’, new study warns
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/04/06/baby-wipes-cause-food-allergy-new-study-warns/
Here’s a novel idea, why not have a flushing tax on them? After all it works for everything else.
@Padraig Grimes: Wouldnt solve the problem being the damage they do.
Australia has just fined a manufacturer for falsely claiming their products were ‘flush-able’ to which a leading scientist responded that nothing but toilet paper is flush-able. We should be charging producers/retailers for the full cost of drain clearing where an engineer implicates these wipes as the prime cause, or better still ban the bloody things- though you can’t talk sense to a Blueshirt with a lobbyist’s hand up his arse!
“… even nappies.” – who in their right mind flushes nappies down the toilet??!! And that’s probably just the beginning. I heard of people flushing down kitchen waste….!?! No wonder there are fatbergs
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