20 February 2024 – Water UK has dropped their certification scheme for flushable wet wipes. This means no wipes are fine to flush down the toilet any more.
Introduced in 2019, the certificate wipes that were deemed suitable to flush aimed at giving consumers more clarity. Encouragement to buy more environmentally friendly wipes also played a part.
The scheme only covered baby wipes and wipes that are used instead of toilet paper. Other types of wipes, such as make-up wipes, were excluded. Eligible wet wipes were tested to assess how well they break down in sewers.
Any that passed the test were allowed to use a “fine to flush” label. However, UK water has now said that wet wipes are the main cause for sewage blockages and as a result dropped the certification scheme.
Over 2bn Wet Wipes Are Flushed Down Every Year
According to government data, between 2.1bn and 2.9bn wet wipes end up in our waterways every year. These include those marked as “fine to flush” and those that aren’t. Rather than breaking down, they clog up sewers and create banks of wet-wipes in our rivers, lakes and sea.
Reserach by the environment department has shown that wet wipes are responsible for 93% of sewer blockages. But they also contribute to raw sewage discharge into our waterways.
While initially, Water UK hailed the scheme as a way to give clarity to consumers, it has now admitted that the message was confusing. Many consumers assumed, wrongly, that all wet wipes were flushable, leading to the huge number of wipes found in our waterways.
Reserach by market research company Savanta from 2023 showed that 20% of Brits said they flush wet wipes down the toilet.
Former Environment Secretary Therese Coffey told manufacturers last year already to move away from the confusing messaging and stop using “flushable” or “fine to flash” on their products. But now the water industry has reacted.
Water UK has announced that it will drop its certification scheme for flushable wipes at the end of February. The new and simpler message it wants to convey to consumers is that no wet wipe should be flushed down the toilet.
Instead, they should be disposed of in the bin. Water UK created the Bin The Wipe campaign to support their new message.
End Of “Fine To Flush” Label Welcomed By Environmental Organisations
The announcement by Water UK has been welcomed by environmental charity Thames21, who does regular clean-ups of the Thames foreshore.
In five years, the charity has picked up over 135,000 wet wipes that made it onto the foreshores of the Thames. The charitable organisation said that the end of the certificate scheme will stop the confusion for consumers.
Thames21 also hopes that the end of this label will help to better inform the public on how to dispose of wet wipes appropriately. The charity is pleased that the water industry now also supports the ethos of “Bin it, don’t flush it”.
Only the three Ps (pee, poo and paper) should be flushed down the toilet.
Thames21
However, trade body Edana, which represents manufacturers of wet wipes, contradicts the government findings. It said that Fats Oil and Grease (FOG) being poured down sinks by businesses and households is the main cause of sewer blockages rather than wet wipes.
Commenting on the end of the certification scheme, Edana insisted that all moist toilet tissues produced by their members remain flushable. This comment is unlikely to help with bringing clarity to consumers.
Our Opinion
Here at EcoHomeLife we are very pleased that Water UK has given up on their “fine to flush” label, because scientists have shown in various studies that wet wipes cause huge problems for our environment if they enter our waterways.
Even those wipes that are supposedly flushable, because they break down quicker, don’t break down fully before they end up in our rivers and seas. And while the label might have encouraged manufacturers to remove plastic from their wet wipes, as Water UK claims, many still contain plastic.
But the plastic isn’t the only issue, far from it. Wet wipes are drenched in chemicals, many of which are harmful to our environment, even if they end up in landfill.
The core issue with wet wipes of any kind is that they are single use. While I understand that wet wipes are convenient, especially if you have kids, they will never be as eco-friendly as a reusable cloth.
Any single-use item creates huge amounts of waste. And whether wipes are disposed off by flushing them down the toilets or binning them isn’t the key issue. The main message should be to stop using them.
Because even eco-friendly wet wipes that don’t contain plastic or harmful chemicals still use up large amounts of resources. And that’s what needs solving if we really want to help our planet. We have to reduce the amount of resources we use and waste we produce.
So what our environment really needs is a ban on single-use items, such as wet wipes.
