Are Wet Wipes Wrecking the World's Sewers?

[Zippyjuan]

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/a...sewers/504098/

Around the end of high school, Sean Riley got hooked on using wet wipes as toilet paper. He first encountered them at a friend's house on the back of the toilet, and decided to give them a try. “It’s just a totally different feeling,” he says . “You see what you were leaving behind.”

When he moved into an apartment in Chicago with his three best friends after college, Riley stocked wet wipes in the bathroom. It didn’t take long for the guys to have what he calls “the conversation”: They all admitted they were addicted. Once they felt that moist rub, they couldn’t turn back to the brittle chafe of toilet paper. They made a trip to Sam’s Club together to buy wet wipes in bulk.

Then they had a second conversation. What if they started a business? What if they created a wet wipe that young men, like themselves, could purchase without feeling embarrassed? “That was when we started looking at the market,” Riley says. “Where is the flushable wipes market at right now? Where is it going?”

Dude Wipes was born.

The company is a rising star in the flushable wet-wipe world, a multi-billion-dollar industry that took off in the mid-2000s, when companies like Kimberly-Clark and Proctor & Gamble repackaged traditional baby wipes as luxurious adult toilet paper, pre-soaked and cut-down small enough to flush down a toilet. In 2015, personal wet-wipe sales reached an estimated $2.2 billion.

Dude Wipes has made a name for itself by using clever and humorous marketing. The company posts a never-ending stream of potty-themed jokes on social media, such as the faux-launch of a limited-edition Pumpkin Spice scent. Riley, now 31, refers to himself as the “Chief Executive Dude.” Collectively, the owners call themselves “the AmbASSadors.”

Riley believes that his friends’ camaraderie and sense of humor give Dude Wipes its competitive edge. People seem to agree. In 2013, Dude Wipes won the Nonwovens Industry Visionary Award, an industry-wide honor for the year’s most exciting new product. In 2015, after the AmbASSadors appeared on TV show Shark Tank, the billionaire Mark Cuban became an investor and partner in the company. Dude Wipes is stocked at national chains like Kroger, Meijer, and Target.

But lawsuits are now popping up across the country over use of the word “flushable.” Sewerage authorities claim that flushable wet wipes don’t break apart, and, as a result, are destroying municipal sewer systems. The wipes cluster with congealed food fat to form large blockages known as fatberg—a portmanteau of fat and iceberg. Last year, a 10-ton lump was removed from the London sewer system at a cost of £400,000. Cases have also been reported in Newcastle, Sydney, San Francisco, Miami, New York City, Toronto, and Washington, D.C.




In 2015, the Federal Trade Commission pulled a wet wipe by the brand Nice-Pak off the market. Sewerage authorities hope that more regulation is imminent. Dude Wipes, for its part, claims that its wipes are biodegradable and have been tested by “scientist and doctor dudes.” Are those claims true? Can wet wipes be stopped? Or must cities resign themselves to a future of fatberg?

Dave Torma, a public-works employee in Wyoming, says that the problem picked up in the early 2000s and has gotten worse over the years. After wet wipes are flushed, they exit a house through a lateral pipe that connects to a public sewer system, where sewage pumps ensure that the wastewater flows in the correct direction. But unlike toilet paper, wet wipes fail to disintegrate. They clog the pumps, causing them to break down and redirect stagnant wastewater back toward houses. Sewer systems must be shut down so that the wipes can be manually removed. When the four-foot pumps are lifted for maintenance, “it looks like you’re pulling up Cousin It,” Torma says.

In 2008, the industry standard for use of the word “flushable” for wet wipes and other nonwoven products was created by the North American trade organization the Association of Nonwoven Fabric Industries, also known as INDA. As of 2013, to be labeled “flushable,” a wet wipe must pass seven tests that evaluate its ability to disintegrate, biodegrade, and clear household and municipal sewer lines. But there is no penalty or fine if a wet-wipe manufacturer doesn’t comply. The industry is self-regulated, without government oversight.

More at link.

[Jesse James]

$#@!, somebody here needs to make some wet toilet paper that breaks down well. money to be made

[presence]

muhpublicsewers!

Standard normal commie fail:

Uncle's interference leads to failure to personally bear costs for bad habits leads to tax penalty for everyone.

[tod evans]

+



=

Clean sewer systems

For cities the only way to stop folks from flushing anything that'll fit down the hole is to install sewer traps on every line before they hit the mains..

Country folks know better, we have to buy new lateral lines when people flush odd $#@!...

[presence]

Country folks know better, we have to buy new lateral lines when people flush odd $#@!...

bingo

SELF-RESPONSIBILITY

[tod evans]

Better yet..........

How 'bout turning Zips $#@!ty thread into pictures of bunghole polishers?

I'll start;









Danke, try to control yourself......

[presence]

[presence]

we're so $#@!ed

[Origanalist]

What a crappy thread. Thanks zippy.

[Origanalist]

Better yet..........

How 'bout turning Zips $#@!ty thread into pictures of bunghole polishers?

I'll start;









Danke, try to control yourself......

No plus rep for you....

[tod evans]

No plus rep for you....

The thought that there's enough guys polishing their asses to literally clog city sewers is nuts.....

Then I look around...

Presence already said it;

we're so $#@!ed

[angelatc]

bingo

SELF-RESPONSIBILITY

I was potty training #1 son when these flushable diaper wipes for adults first appeared on the market. Had a septic system. The mom across the street had a kid the same age, and we were interested because we thought it might help the little boys wipe properly. She brought some home because they claimed to be flushable, but we put one in a jar of water and shook it up.....nothing about it broke up.

Plus reps to you both. Country people know.

[Chester Copperpot]

i never use these things.. i just thought flushable meant it was ok to flush... evidently not

[juleswin]

The idea of wet wipes grosses me out. I always imagine the feces particles diffusing through the wet in the wipes to contact my fingers. And I am not cool with that happening.

[Anti Federalist]

The industry is self-regulated, without government oversight

Well, clearly this must stop.

Not a good day in AmeriKa unless something is getting regulated/banned.

[Brian4Liberty]

muhpublicsewers!

Standard normal commie fail:

Uncle's interference leads to failure to personally bear costs for bad habits leads to tax penalty for everyone.

Would a tax on the wipes themselves result in direct bearing of costs? That would be the Bloomberg solution.

[Brian4Liberty]

Would a bidet be more sewer friendly?

[presence]

Would a tax on the wipes themselves result in direct bearing of costs? That would be the Bloomberg solution.

60% would buy black market and avoid the tax stamp like they do with Bloombergs cigarettes.

[tod evans]

Would a bidet be more sewer friendly?

Of course, but it's still an urban/metrosexual kind of thing..

Just $#@! in the morning before your shower like most guys do........................Or used to.

[presence]

Would a bidet be more sewer friendly?

We really need to license ass wiping to get anywhere.

[tod evans]

We really need to license ass wiping to get anywhere.

$#@! that!

License $#@!s.

[Brian4Liberty]

60% would buy black market and avoid the tax stamp like they do with Bloombergs cigarettes.

Lol.

"Yo, wet wipes. Got some wet wipes here. What kind you want? Pine forest? Rose garden? Smoked ham?"

[presence]

Lol.

"Yo, wet wipes. Got some wet wipes here. What kind you want? Pine forest? Rose garden? Smoked ham?"

will you trade for some hot bottles of Tide?

[Suzanimal]

I was potty training #1 son when these flushable diaper wipes for adults first appeared on the market. Had a septic system. The mom across the street had a kid the same age, and we were interested because we thought it might help the little boys wipe properly. She brought some home because they claimed to be flushable, but we put one in a jar of water and shook it up.....nothing about it broke up.

Plus reps to you both. Country people know.

Yep. We have a septic tank and when my in-laws moved close by, I warned them but I'm a dumbass....they only lived there 6 months before they had to have a new leech field. Those fools were not only using wipes but they were pouring everything down the sink because they have a garbage disposal. O_o

[tod evans]

This goes here, From Drudge;

Almost half of all men are trimming or shaving their leg hair – why?

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...-a7365536.html

Almost half of men admit to trimming or shaving their leg hair - en eyebrow raising admission, even for a generation of spornosexual manscapers.

Male hair trimming that rarely concerns body hair south of the border, unless you’re a professional swimmer or cyclist - but these days average Joes everywhere are taking razors to their hairy pins.

Surveying their Facebook followers, Men’s Health found that while the majority of men are not completely shaving their legs, a surprising 15 per cent are, while a further 33 per cent admitted: “I don’t shave clean, but I do use a trimmer to cut it down”. That’s nearly half of the men polled that are tackling their leg hair in some way or form - but why?
Following the fruition of the metrosexual, its initiator Mark Simpson has coined the next stage in its evolution as the spornosexual; a group of men who strive to look like sportsmen or porn stars. Perhaps this tendency towards smooth-shaven buffness is behind men becoming body conscious.

On the back of its initial survey, sister publication Women’s Health jumped on the bushy bandwagon asking their Facebook followers, “What do you think about guys shaving their legs?” The results showed that nearly 30 per cent of women “like a man who trims leg hair down” and 22 percent “love a man with clean shaven legs”. That’s more than half the women surveyed that responded to legscaping positively, but it’s a divisive subject.

One Reddit poll which proposed the same question proved that while the number of men seeking leg hair removal is rising, some women just don’t like it.

“I think I'd be weirded out by another set of smooth legs touching me” one user said, while another responded: "I think I'd really need a functional reason, because I like hair on my men.”
The internet is awash with guides on how men can achieve the ultimate slippery smooth physique but does anybody truly care?

Just as with women, body hair removal is a personal decision so if you’re a guy and like your legs to feel super soft and shiny then keep on keeping on.

[Jesse James]

If my bud shaved his legs I would laugh in his face

[dannno]

Of course, but it's still an urban/metrosexual kind of thing..

Bidets are an urban/metrosexual thing?

You're just making that up, right? I thought they were more of an aristocrat, European, up-state thing from decades ago.

I've never actually seen one in real life before.

[oyarde]

Bidets are an urban/metrosexual thing?

You're just making that up, right? I thought they were more of an aristocrat, European, up-state thing from decades ago.

I've never actually seen one in real life before.

The hotels I stayed at in Paris in the 80's always had them .

[tod evans]

Bidets are an urban/metrosexual thing?

You're just making that up, right? I thought they were more of an aristocrat, European, up-state thing from decades ago.

I've never actually seen one in real life before.

Some of the homes I work in have bidets installed and every one of them is owned by an urbanite/metrosexual/yuppie building out in the sticks because it's the in thing to do...

I smile all the way to the bank....

[opal]

until I see a handicap height bidet.. forgetaboutit...