Does that mean they are dumping raw sewage directly into the river? Treatment plants usually remove all solids before releasing effluent into bodies of water.

As I understand it, these come from overflow pipes. That it, sewer is normally treated, but the same sewer system also include storm sewers. The treatment capacity isn't high enough to handle big storms, so when there's too much rain, yes, they dump raw sewage directly into the water.

They could improve this, but that would cost money, which means rich people would make less profit or pay more taxes.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56590219 adds "It's believed that wet wipes make up at least 90% of the material causing sewers to block."

That would lessen with a ban on selling plastic-based wet wipes.

> They could improve this, but that would cost money, which means rich people would make less profit or pay more taxes.

Not sure how the English handle this kind of taxation but in the US most municipalities would spread the cost of a project like this over all users or add as some assessment to property taxes.

In other words, not just “rich people” would pay for it.

There are still quite a few otherwise modern cities in the US that also have this legacy problem (shared sewer + storm drain). My guess is that the cost is considered to be far too high to rip up and rebuild these systems.

I didn't say that only rich people would pay for it. I said the taxes aren't raised because rich people don't want them raised. (And rich people have more say in what government does than poor people.)

If the costs are high, then raise taxes - progressively - to rebuild these systems.

> I said the taxes aren't raised because rich people don't want them raised.

no one wants taxes to raise. poor, middle, rich, you name it. because it just means less money at the end of the month.

I think the current taxes in the US are too regressive, and I'm not alone. Warren Buffett famously pointed out his total tax rate was 17.7%, while the average tax rate for people in his office was 32.9%.

If my taxes go up 1% while those making $1M+/year go up by 10%, in order to get improved sewage treatment systems and more, then I'm all for it.

While rich people tend to use their free time for something beside going to the local English beach for a swim.

Universal single-payer health care is cheaper and with better overall health benefits than the current US system has. I would gladly pay higher taxes than pay for my own health insurance as it means more money at the end of the month.

How much money should you get at the end of the month for letting the water be more polluted with untreated sewage?

If rich people have more say, I'm surprised more municipalities aren't using flat or regressive taxes.

You think they aren't?

Promoting single-family homes, prohibiting detached housing, zoning laws that require parking and minimum lawn sizes, etc. all drive up the cost of housing for people who don't have as much money.

It's also cheaper to maintain infrastructure (streets, water, sewer, etc.) in older more densely packed (and also less expensive / poorer) neighborhoods than in more expansive suburbia. As https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/5/7/the-more-we-bui... puts it "The poorest neighborhoods are, in essence, subsidizing the rich ones."

That's terrible setup that should be updated.

A huge tunnel is being dug under the Thames for sewage overflow to prevent this from happening. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Tideway_Scheme

Essentially, yes. It's been a slow-burning controversy for some months now.

It seems like you can't trust the general population with the simplest things. These things say on the package that you can't flush them.

It seems like people just throw their electronic and other hazardous waste away without much consideration as well.

We end up sacrificing a lot for the lowest common denominator. We have to ban things, or license them, or regulate them, or have strict enforcement. Generally, if we can't do without it, like AC refrigerant, it sticks around with heavy penalties and still gets abused. If we can do without it, it just gets banned.

My daughter and I just tried. Had a package that said you can flush them. Tried to dissolve them in the sink. Not possible. Which come out of course, makes sense: The very reason for these things to exist is that they don’t fall apart when wet.

In the United States the packaging plainly says you can flush them, even though you can't.

Similar in the UK. People take "fine to flush" on the packaging to mean "fine to flush as many as you like at a time": https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-61922999

Quite what these people are using so many wet wipes for is beyond me. Changing babies and removing make up are the only common uses I can think of, but why not just put them in the bin?

From people I know they also use them as toilet paper in cases where one is raw or otherwise sore. A bidet (or bidet seat in cases where that's not possible) would solve that problem outright.

I have a bidet, when I don’t have one, I like to shower, if I don’t shower, I’m potentially walking around with poop and paper caked in my butt crack all day. It’s disgusting, what’s wrong with society ? Why doesn’t everywhere have a bidet or similar ?

The only answer I can really offer is that in those parts of the (developed) world where bidets are not common, society functions just fine and doesn't seem to be negatively impacted in any way by their absence. I don't have a bidet and I don't always shower immediately after doing my business. Am I "potentially walking around with poop and paper caked in my butt crack all day"? I guess, technically, yes. But it's not something I've ever noticed and it's certainly not something anyone else has ever noticed.

I never noticed it until I bought a bidet. Now I do.

It's amazing to what one can get used to. My washlet has a heated seat, now regular seats feel very cold.

> I’m potentially walking around with poop and paper caked in my butt crack all day.

Do you simply not know how to wipe your bum properly? My two-year-old has the basics of it, even if he hasn't quite got his technique down yet.

It might depend on your digestion and amount of hair on your bum, but there are sometimes when using even dozens of paper wipes does not seem to fully clean the bum and additional wipes still come away dirty (to the point where they also come away with blood due to the skin having been irritated by repeated wiping with dry paper). A bidet solves this neatly, of course so would a shower or using wet wipes.

Same experience for me.

It’s also worse if you spend significant time using a bidet, then find yourself without one.

Ouch.

“Fine to flush” means physically it will go down the toilet. It does not mean 1) safe for pipes; 2) safe for septic; 3) easily filtered from any treatment plant; 4) biodegradable; 5) dissolvable

It is just bullshit marketing, but technically it’s true. Flushable means “can be flushed,” not that it’s a good or responsible idea.

Maybe they are different brands with different compositions that make it possible or not possible

It's like when you see things labelled as compostable. Almost everything is technically compostable, but many substances require conditions which can only be achieved when composting on an industrial scale using heat and oxygen. Until there are legal definitions, it doesn't matter if some people are doing the right thing when others will take advantage.

i remember an episode from the sitcom “trailer park boys” [0] where one of the characters throws all their garbage in a local lake. his logic was that he never sees it again, so the lake recycles it somehow. i found the situation very funny and totally realistic.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailer_Park_Boys

I think the most effective school field trip would be a trip to the landfill to show everyone what happens when you throw something “away”.

In 6th grade we took a trip to the sewage treatment plant.

As is the case with most things, there is probably some power-law in effect. 90% of the population likely disposes of the wipes appropriately. But 10% of people probably cause 90% of the issue.

Market economy rule and binary thinking made that obvious. Everything has a price, therefore everything will be acquired, used and abused, dumbed down, disposed of, flushed away, before becoming the next market headline: Entrepreneur makes millions while extracting massive profits out of used wet wipes!

A way out? Nope. It's a maddening process we all have to fully and completely enjoy, ad nauseam, to the very end.

What happens to the other solids in the treatment plant? Makes me wonder how effective the treatment plants are. My local water district asked people to stop flushing wipes because they were clogging the treatment plant. At least we're not sending them to our river.

At least the one I went to on a school field trip the solids go to a landfill. There are two kinds of solids gross solids (trash) and sludge. Trash is strained out and removed from the incoming waste stream. Sludge is whatever settles out of the various treatment steps. It's anything that the bacteria can't digest.

Wet wipes would classify as trash but likely slip through the incoming strainer. Other things the waste treatment people hated were tampons and condoms.

They'd rather ban wipes than keep raw sewage out of the river... wrong priorities for sure. Upgrade the plant.

Upgrading the plant doesn't fix overflows caused or exacerbated by clogged sewers. There's no easy or cheap solution, especially when your sewers are old and under a big city like London.

Dig’em up and use them to reinforce concrete, perhaps?

Meanwhile the focus is on banning straws.

Don't worry, is a problem so unimportant that we will convince a few naive people to solve it for free in their spare time. No need to allow any resources for that.