There’s a problem across many areas of the US as pre-moistened towelettes are causing clogs and sewer backups in various parts of the country.

Pre-moistened towelettes are causing clogs and sewer backups in various parts of the country.

A contributing factor is the wipes are often advertised as flushable leading many people to believe that there’s nothing wrong with sending them down the toilet. In many cases, the towelettes aren’t breaking down properly and municipalities are forced to spend millions of dollars unclogging the systems and upgrading pipes to handle the vast amount of wipes.

Although manufacturers of flushable wipes claim their specific product isn’t the problem and instead point to baby wipes and sanitizing wipes as the culprits, wastewater authorities in Washington state dyed several different kinds of wipes to find out which ones were causing the problem.

They found that some of the ones labeled flushable had small rips and tears but were still intact, as they take longer to break down than standard toilet paper. A director of facilities support services in California stated “Only flush pee, poop and toilet paper because those are the only things that sanitary sewers were really designed for in the old days.”