Watch above: some things are not meant to be flushed down the toilet
SASKATOON – Flushing the wrong things down the toilet can be pricey, if not for you, for someone down the line.
“When you’re unclogging it’s usually something that’s not supposed to be there like feminine hygiene products, when they get wet they expand, they’ll completely block the toilet, sometimes it’s hard to get a snake through them, kids toys, bath toys, quite a few of those,” said Paul Trimble, a plumber and gas fitter with Centennial 360.
Most of the time, if something that isn’t supposed to be flushed down the toilet will make it’s way through but Trimble says it could cause problems down the line.
“Roots themselves don’t cause problems but when things go down the drain that don’t break down, toilet paper does break down and it goes through but something like a wipe, a baby wipe would get caught on tree roots and then everything piles up on that and causes a major problem with the main sewer,” said Trimble.
Whatever flows down the toilet is eventually supposed to make its way to the Saskatoon wastewater treatment plant.
“It costs more money then just throwing it out because it’s typically wet, even though we squeeze as much water out as we can it’s an added weight and we are charged per weight. So if someone can just throw it out with their regular garbage that’s better for everyone,” said Tim Bushman, the wastewater treatment plant manager.
On average, three to four tons of waste is taken to the landfill each day, which cost the City of Saskatoon $65,000 in 2013.
It’s been a bigger problem in the past; in 2008, the city did work to upgrade the head works.
“How the materials were handled in the past, it was quite odorous so the new head works upgrade facility actually washes the material and cleans it up before we send it to the landfill, and it does remove smaller particles which would end up further down the process and cause issues for us,” said Bushman.
Ideally only toilet paper and waste should be flushed down the toilet or you could find yourself flushing money down the drain.
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