Columbus Water Works teaches us what not to flush in a singalong

You might not think the average or perhaps even below-average Columbus resident needs a lesson in what goes down the toilet and what does not.

You might not think people here need an instructional YouTube video on the topic, set to the tune of Meghan Trainor’s catchy hit song “All About That Bass.”

You might be wrong.

“Yeah the Water Works told me that it will clog your pipes,” a woman sings on the 3-minute, 20-second video. “They say don’t flush those things or you’ll have trouble at night. (Don’t flush ‘em, flush ‘em.) So no diapers, no wipes, no Q-tips or paper towels, so if that’s what you’re doing, please just stop it now.”

The Columbus Water Works linked to the video Monday in a Facebook posting reminding customers that flushing waste other than urine, feces and toilet paper can lead to clogged pipes and sewer backups in their homes or raw sewage discharges somewhere down the line.

Maybe most folks know a toilet is not a trash compactor designed to accommodate whatever garbage they can cram into it, but apparently some do not, because the utility keeps having to remind them, either with a music video or an online list.

The list does not list everything people aren’t supposed to flush – apparently some things truly are a given, and no one tries to flush an old pair of blue jeans or the carcass of a dead animal that’s not a goldfish – but it does cover the trash most likely to be dumped in the bowl:

Baby wipes, for example, rank near the top. And not just wipes made for baby butts, but all those disinfecting disposable wipes people use these days. They may look flimsy. They may feel as light as toilet paper, but they are not. They don’t degrade in water the way toilet paper does.

Nor do disposable diapers, or paper towels. Like old cloth rags, they will bunch up and form a clog that blocks a pipe and sends other sewage back up the line or out through a break.

Vic Burchfield, the Water Works’ vice president for information, security and environmental services, said disinfectant wipes have become a constant hazard. They not only clog pipes, they get into the machinery in lift stations that pump sewage from low-lying areas up to where it will drain by gravity to the treatment plant off South Lumpkin Road.

Keeping the lift stations functional requires repeated maintenance when customers keep flushing wipes into the system, he said.

Mop refills, those replacement heads for the business end of floor mops, also made the list. So apparently people have been trying to flush those, too, though it doesn’t seem like one would get very far before the toilet clogged and overflowed.

Another substance you might never have considered trying to flush before you read this is cat litter. Like a mop head, a box of used cat litter doesn’t seem like it would just flow away once you dumped it in the toilet bowl and pushed the handle. More likely it would aggregate and solidify like cement, and then the pet owner who tried to flush it would wind up using the cat’s box. But cat litter made the list, too.

Also in the rankings: food and dental floss, which make you wonder whether people are eating and flossing their teeth while they’re on the toilet.

Speaking of food, the Water Works also reminds customers not to dump cooking fat, grease and other oils down the drain, whether that drain’s in the bathroom or the kitchen.

When hot grease cools off, it solidifies in the system, clogging drain pipes until they overflow, sending raw sewage into nearby creeks and then into the Chattahoochee River.

If a music video set to a Meghan Trainor song isn’t catchy enough to stick in customers’ minds, the Water Works posts another memory trick to remind residents that only three things are to be flushed.

“Lastly, remember the 3 P’s, which are the only things you should flush down your toilet. They are: Pee, Poo, Paper (Toilet),” it says.

Apparently it had to add “toilet” in parentheses so no one would think “paper” included wallpaper, or wax paper, or newspaper, or flypaper or any other paper they can fit in a toilet bowl.

This story was originally published April 12, 2017 at 1:16 PM with the headline "Columbus Water Works teaches us what not to flush in a singalong."