What to Know
- Pottstown's Wastewater Treatment Plant is being inundated with wipes that are clogging up the system.
- Last year alone, the borough spent about $120,000 cleaning up dirty wipes in its wastewater system & making repairs.
- A grant to improve equipment hopefully will help mash up the mess and save workers time spent fishing out the dirty wipes.
Personal hygiene wipes may make for a more satisfying bathroom experience, but they're proving to be damaging to one Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, town's sewage system.
Pottstown spent around $120,000 last year fixing broken machinery and fishing out clumps of the so-labeled flushable wipes from traps and pumps at the borough's wastewater plant.
"They come into the plant just as they left your toilet," said Jason Skimski, a worker at the Pottstown treatment plant. "It wreaks havoc."
Despite being labeled as biodegradable and flushable, there's a well-documented history of wet wipes failing to disintegrate before they reach sewage facilities. One town, Wyoming, Minnesota, filed a lawsuit against a wipe manufacturer arguing tests that certify the wipes as flushable do not mimic real-life conditions, according to The Atlantic.
The issue has gotten so bad in Pottstown that the town has dedicated a dumpster outside the plant for depositing the impassable wet wipes.
"We try to remove them, grind them, and cut them. There's only so much that you can do," Skimski said.
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Local plummer Mike Krasley with Krasley Plumbing and Heating says he's seen a huge increase in wipe-related clogs inside homes and businesses recently.
"It used to be a toy in the toilet or the tooth brush dropped into the toilet," Krasley said. "Ninety percent of the time it is the wipes. It's a growing, growing problem."
Skimski said the town doesn't expect to see the issue go away anytime soon. They've applied for a $500,000 grant to upgrade the treatment plant so they can better break down the wipes.
In the meantime, they urge residents to stop flushing wipes down the toilet.
