Public Employee Press

Don't flush that wipe!

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

New Yorkers' quest for baby-fresh bottoms created an $18 million ecological headache that leaves behind a very dirty job for Dept. of Environmental Protection employees in Local 1320 to clean up.

Baby wipes are not just for kids anymore. Nonwoven "flushable" wipes come in all sizes, including "dude size" and are marketed as the ultimate clean up to answer nature's call.

Unlike toilet paper that breaks down in minutes upon flushing, wipes never break down and pass through the sewer system intact long after the bowl is clear. Flushable wipes clog, snag and accumulate into massive tons of impermeable waste at DEP sewage plants. "labor intensive job," said Local 1320 President Jim Tucciarelli.

DEP works hard to save and protect the environment. Sewage Treatment Workers and their Supervisors, DC 37's Local 1320, process and purify 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater daily, and have the dirty, handson task of raking and removing personal wipes that block mechanical screens, and snarl aerators and impellers (rotating pumps) at wastewater treatment plants.

Flushed wipes are not eco-friendly. Since 2008, wipes have doubled the volume of solid wastes, and make up 90 percent of the fetid mixture of cooking oil and grease, plastics, used condoms and filth that gunk up New York City's 14 sewage treatment plants.

"STWs spend countless hours cleaning wipes from tanks, impellers and machinery," Tucciarelli said. "They have to load them into containers for transport to landfills. Our workforce is already reduced and these wipes add an additional responsibilities and assigned duties."

Celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, MD, who widely advocates using and flushing personal wipes, got an eyeful at DEP's Newtown Creek sewage treatment plant in Brooklyn. After seeing firsthand what wipes do to the plant machinery and the environment, Dr. Oz now says hygienic wipes should be tossed in the trash.

Flushed wipes add a $3 million burden to the annual city budget and lawmakers in the City Council have proposed Intro 666 to address the massive mess wipes leave behind.

Local 1320 and DC 37 join Mayor Bill de Blasio in supporting Intro 666 that Council members Donovan Richards and Antonio Reynoso sponsored. The bill would stop manufacturers from falsely advertising wipes as flushable. With almost 170 billion units sold, manufacturers of personal care wipes netted $8.2 billion in 2013. Intro 666 also imposes fines and requires that wipes manufacturers meet DEP standards so the material breaks down, and label wipes as unflushable-to be tossed in the trash.

"We are not looking to ban the wipes, they serve a purpose," said Tucciarelli. "We are trying to get manufacturers to be truthful and stop saying these wipes are flushable when they don't break down. It would help the city-and the environment- if the initial user would just think before they flush and dispose of the wipes properly."