- The initiative aims to raise awareness about the economic and environmental consequences of flushing wipes down the toilet.
Flushing wipes down the toilet has serious economic and environmental consequences. They don't decompose like toilet paper; as they pass through the pipes, they tear, snag, and accumulate, causing major blockages and breakdowns. This problem has recently worsened in Almassora, where FACSA—the company that manages the town's drinking water and sewage service—has issued a warning about the situation.
Specifically, the company has detected a significant blockage in a 500-meter-long sewer line located on Camí Om Blanc, in the beach area. This blockage extends for 300 meters in sections and, to date, has already generated an approximate cost of 3,000 euros.
To tackle this problem, the Grupo Gimeno company has jointly developed with the Almassora City Council the citizen awareness campaign 'The Wipes Chaos', whose main objective is to change the ingrained habit of throwing wet wipes down the toilet, eliminate the belief that most of them degrade with water and raise awareness about the environmental and economic consequences of this erroneous practice.
In most cases, people only address this problem when they experience a breakdown in their own home, but this is just the tip of the iceberg of a much larger issue. FACSA has used this analogy in its campaign to graphically and directly illustrate the consequences of flushing wipes down the toilet instead of disposing of them in the trash.
In this regard, as Patricia Agrasar, head of operations at FACSA in Almassora, has pointed out, “virtually all wipes used in Spanish homes end up in sewer systems and wastewater treatment plants, where the accumulation of this type of waste forms large blockages that, in turn, lead to breakdowns of pumping stations and bad smells in the drains of homes.”.
But this problem also affects the environment. Wipes are made with plastic materials very different from the cellulose in toilet paper, which, being woven, does not decompose. Furthermore, they are impregnated with additives that pollute the water, which must then be treated at wastewater treatment plants.
The Councillor for Public Services of the Almassora City Council, Joan Antoni Trenco, has asked the population for “sensitivity” in order to tackle this problem “which represents a high environmental and economic cost to the municipal coffers”.
