When it comes to disposing of certain household items, surprisingly Brits have openly admitted to flushing a lot of these down the toilet. Not only is this damaging to the sewers, but it also has a direct negative impact on the environment – not to mention the drain issues it could cause in your home and local area.

The survey showed that wet wipes labelled as flushable were the most commonly flushed item (39%), followed by tampons (31%). Below are some of the other surprising culprits contributing towards blocked sewers, based on our survey participants’ answers.

Items people admitted to flushing down the toilet:

Soup
Dental floss
Toy spider
Cigarette
Fish
Hair (common answer)
Nail clippings
Hot fat from cooked meat
What you Should be Flushing
When it comes to preventing fatbergs and drainage issues, never flush wet wipes, plasters, cotton buds or any other plastic-containing items down your toilet, even if the packaging tells you it’s “flushable”. When using the toilet, remember the 3 Ps – only pee, poo and (toilet) paper can be safely flushed.

Lanes Group plc Urges Public to Make Changes Ahead of Unblocktober
In order to try and improve people’s habits and awareness when it comes to drains, Lanes Group plc runs an annual nationwide awareness month – Unblocktober – inviting people to commit to a series of simple pledges for the month of October to help protect our sewers and seas from fatbergs and plastic.

Haylie Orton, Marketing Manager at Lanes Group plc, said: “This national survey has provided us with a fascinating insight into people’s habits and awareness when it comes to what they put down the drain and sewers and the impact their behaviour can have on the environment.

“We can see that, despite there being some awareness around fatbergs, there is still some way to go in terms of educating the public on how they are unintentionally adding to the problem.”

Haylie said: “We’re excited to run Unblocktober for the third year in a row in order to challenge the public to change their behaviour. If we all make tiny changes at home this can have a huge impact on the environment as a whole, we just need to harness the conversation around plastic pollution and environmental issues and give people the knowledge they need to make a change for good.

“Our survey results show that the British public want to do their bit, so now I urge local and national governments to make it easy for people to help the environment and ensure the infrastructure is there to make this as convenient as possible.”