3 ms·

> people have to be told not to put stretchy latex things into the sewage system. How on earth are people really expected to grasp a more complex issue like AGW

> people have to be told not to put stretchy latex things into the sewage system. How on earth are people really expected to grasp a more complex issue like AGW? And yet we can put big wads of paper and faeces in the sewage system. There is nothing logical or illogical about what you can flush, you have to be told how the processing works and what its limitations are to know.

wutbrodo 8y ago
I dunno... I was a child when I noticed that toilet paper is different from other paper, in that it degrades pretty rapidly when wet. Feces also obviously doesn't hold its shape very well. That seems fairly straightforward and 'logical', and my instinct wouldn't be to flush anything that doesn't have a decent chance of breaking up in water. Again, most kids would know that latex and rubbery things don't break up in water. I've never looked up the way the plumbing system works and what it can handle, and was never taught much about it, but it was pretty easy to come to the subconscious conclusion that flushing is (generally speaking) for liquids, poop, and TP. I will say that I wouldn't expect anyone to know that (as described in the article) a product explicitly marketed as "flushable" wouldn't be good for the water system. But that's a separate topic IMO: a systemic failure in providing inaccurate information vs making assumptions that don't err on the side of caution.
mikestew 8y ago
There is nothing logical or illogical about what you can flush It's perfectly logical: it's either toilet paper, or it originated from your internal organs. Like I tell guests in my RV, "anything else, and you and I can have a good time with rubber gloves, a big stick, and lots of poop". It might be those on urban sewers, too, that suffer from "out of sight, out of mind". The folks I've known who have septic (myself included at various points) either knew better, or would soon learn an expensive lesson.

wutbrodo 8y ago

I dunno... I was a child when I noticed that toilet paper is different from other paper, in that it degrades pretty rapidly when wet. Feces also obviously doesn't hold its shape very well. That seems fairly straightforward and 'logical', and my instinct wouldn't be to flush anything that doesn't have a decent chance of breaking up in water. Again, most kids would know that latex and rubbery things don't break up in water. I've never looked up the way the plumbing system works and what it can handle, and was never taught much about it, but it was pretty easy to come to the subconscious conclusion that flushing is (generally speaking) for liquids, poop, and TP. I will say that I wouldn't expect anyone to know that (as described in the article) a product explicitly marketed as "flushable" wouldn't be good for the water system. But that's a separate topic IMO: a systemic failure in providing inaccurate information vs making assumptions that don't err on the side of caution.

mikestew 8y ago

There is nothing logical or illogical about what you can flush It's perfectly logical: it's either toilet paper, or it originated from your internal organs. Like I tell guests in my RV, "anything else, and you and I can have a good time with rubber gloves, a big stick, and lots of poop". It might be those on urban sewers, too, that suffer from "out of sight, out of mind". The folks I've known who have septic (myself included at various points) either knew better, or would soon learn an expensive lesson.