What Does “Flushable” Mean?
Where does your sewage go? If you live in Nassau County, it goes into a sewage
treatment plant. One huge problem for these treatment plants is nylon. Nylon is
a strong, stretchy material that slows and breaks down the sewage treatment
system.
Mr. Keith Pearsall, Chief Operator at The Greater Atlantic Beach Water
Reclamation District, visited our classroom to share information with us. He told
us that nylon can cause problems at sewage treatment plants and even shut
down the equipment. All sewage plants have grinders, machines with rotating
teeth that are used for tearing up sewage. The grinder’s purpose is to rip up
solid materials in the flow.
The grinder is powerful enough to rip up a two-by-four piece of lumber but nylon
material can stop a grinder dead. These nylon products hang up on the machine
and as they collect, they clog up the machine and it stops operating. The
problem does not stop there. In the machine called the digester, which is where
organic materials are broken down, the nylon takes up space because it is not
biodegradable. It takes regular sewage days to decompose, while nylon can take
years. Also, the pumps become clogged because of nylon. Thousands and
thousands of dollars are spent fixing these machines or replacing them. The
amount of money spent has to come from somewhere. Since these sewage
treatment centers are public facilities, our tax dollars pay for these repairs.
What does this nylon problem have to do with homeowners? Do homeowners
throw nylon down their toilets or sinks? Unbelievably, the answer is yes! The
baby wipes and dental floss in your homes contain nylon-based materials. Every
time you throw a baby wipe in the toilet or let dental floss go down the drain,
the nylon from your household, your neighbor’s household and so on adds up
and causes these terrible problems for the grinder and digester at the sewage
treatment plants.
“What does flushable mean? This, it turns out, is a very good question. Flushable
wipes are indeed flushable, just as a box of doughnuts and a case of Slim Jims
are ‘edible.’ Doughnuts are as bad for your system as nylon is bad for the
sewage plants. Just because you get them down doesn’t mean they’re good for
your system.” This quote and more information can be found here:
www.networxs.com/article/how-bad-for-plumbing-are-disposable-wipe
The problem of nylon in our sewage treatment system can be easily solved. All
we have to do is stop letting baby wipes and dental floss go down our pipes. If
we stopped these nylon blues, imagine what we could do.
“It is very gratifying that youngsters are taking an issue on this,” said Mr.
Pearsall. “Major changes can be made if we could eliminate these nylon products
from sewage flows. It would save our business and tax payers a lot of money,
taking a huge step out of the process.” Mr. Pearsall continued, “ It is both an
environmental problem and a money saving problem. If the workers at the plant
were not tending to problems with nylon in the machines, they could have been
cleaning the filter or skimming the tank which helps the environment.”
Floss your teeth and use your wipes - it’s good hygiene. But remember if you
look at your sink or toilet move your head and hands toward the trash can
instead. How you dispose of your household products has a direct impact on our
environment and your pocket. Let’s work together on making a difference.
Please email us at waterwashers2@gmail.com to let us know if this editorial
helped you in any way. This will provide us with the data we need for our
Siemens research to see if we really did make a difference.
Karis Lynch, Emma Nastro, and Connor Mangan are sixth grade Oceanside
Project Extra students. They are involved in the Siemens “We Can Change the
World” Challenge, which is the premier national environmental sustainability
competition for grades K-12 students. Through project based learning, the
students learn about science and conservation while creating solutions that
impact their planet.