Don’t Flush This!

When most people flush the toilet, they don’t spend much time thinking about where the waste is heading – out of sight, out of mind.
While homeowners may not ponder the path of anything they put down a drain or flush down the toilet, cities and city employees do.
When you use your sink, toilet, shower, washing machine or dishwasher, waste and wastewater leaves your home through pipes that connect to the city sewer system.
Many materials flushed or poured down the drain can harm the pipes that connect to city sewers as well as the city sewer system. Every property owner connected to the city sewer system can be a potential contributor to sewer problems, and a potential victim of those problems.
Hollywood has long had a fascination with what may be lurking in city sewers. In the 1980 film Alligator, an unwanted pet alligator flushed down the toilet grew into a 30-foot long man-eating reptile ravaging Chicago from its home in the sewers below.

For complete story see this week’s Courier