Flushable Wipes Are Wiping Out The City Of Brewer’s Budget

Lord knows how convenient flushable wipes are. Especially for parents of small children. Whip one out of the package, do your dirty work, chuck it in the toilet, and you're good to go. But that flushable wipe you just chucked in the potty, is starting to cost the city of Brewer, and likely many other towns, a lot of money.

City Councilors and Environmentalists all agree that it's becoming a very serious issue, according to FoxBangor. The wipes by themselves, account for 75% of all the repair costs to city sewer pumps. I've read about other towns having similar issues with dental floss as well, and the combination of the two has been crippling towns all over the state.

The wipes don't break down the way most folks think they do. Often, they claim the will break down on the packaging, but the do not. And these wipes are clogging the pumps and burning out the motors. Kenneth Locke, environmental department director for the city of Brewer, added this:

We get pump damage all the time, because it over-torques the pumps and causes the motors to burn up and stuff like that, so there’s a significant amount of money spent each year, just because of the wipes in the sewer system.

And at this point, they're all about getting the word out. They're basically urging people to treat them more like rags. throw them away when you're done with them, if you must use them.

But they're asking folks to do them a big favor by not flushing them. It can be hard to break habits, and no one wants a bunch of smelly wipes hanging around, but try to learn to just chuck them in the trash. You could save the city a ton of money, and not risk having taxes raised in the long run....