Remember that wipe you flushed down the toilet? This could be it now

NORFOLK, Va. – Have you ever flushed a hand wipe down the toilet? What about a cotton swab? Maybe even dental floss after cleaning your teeth?

While a lot of people admit to flushing these items down the drain, askHRgreen.org, along with local cities and the Hampton Roads Sanitation District, said it will only lead to clogged pipes, expensive plumbing repairs and service interruptions for customers.

"It kind of wads up in this big ball and you have [a combination of] menstrual products and cat litter and diaper liners. The reason is because they don't break down and they don't biodegrade like they should," said Lacie Wever.

Wever is the community educator for the Hampton Roads Sanitation District. She gave News 3 Anchor Erin Miller inside access to the Virginia Initiative Treatment Plant (VIP), the wastewater treatment plant behind Old Dominion University.

VIP is where Norfolk and Portsmouth's wastewater gets cleaned before it's pumped into the Elizabeth River. Wastewater is the dirty water that goes down toilets, sinks, showers, washing machines and dishwashers.

One step in cleaning the wastewater is removing nonflushable items, which includes:

"This is material that doesn't dissolve well. Things that get put into the toilet that really shouldn't go into it in the first place," said Matt Poe.

Poe is the Chief of Treatment and said VIP accumulates about 1.6 million lbs. of "rags" each year.

These statistics were a little bit surprising News 3's Erin Miller, so she wanted to see if people in Norfolk felt the same way.

Along with photojournalist David Agudelo, she hit the streets of Norfolk to play the fictional game "What Not to Flush!"

Erin had a bag filled with supplies and people one-by-one asked if the item was flushable. The majority of folks she talked to won the game, but there were some people who didn't know hand/disinfectant wipes should only go into the garbage.

While the participants didn't get a prize, they, hopefully, walked away with a better understanding of how their actions can impact the whole community.

Back at the treatment plant, Wever and Poe said that's the purpose of the "Keep Wipes Out of Pipes" campaign.

"The best thing that people can do is to just throw stuff in the trash that should be in the trash in the first place," Poe said.

According to askHRgreen.org, when a clog or breakdown occurs, untreated sewage can back up into the home and neighborhood streets, where it can enter storm drains and waterways.

A dangerous pollutant, untreated sewage, causes sudden increases in nitrogen and bacteria, resulting in declines to local aquatic life (such as plants, fish and crabs), beach closures and health warnings on local seafood consumption.

The organizations involved with the campaign said taking the extra step to throw something away, rather than flush it down the drain, can have a lasting impact on our community and waterways.

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