The title kind of says it all. A couple times in my life, I’ve flushed a condom. I know you’re not supposed to but I did. So there!
This morning I trimmed my hair and flushed a big hunk of it down the toilet. I know it’s technically biodegradable but it’s dang tough stuff and probably will survive the whole sanitation department stuff.
The general case, then. What happens to inorganic stuff when it’s flushed into a public septic system? Is there little Oompa Loompas somewhere downstream with little nets fishing this stuff out?
Whenever I’ve seen descriptions of water-treatment plants, the very first stages have either been sedimentation tanks (letting heavier-than-water matter settle out of solution) or screens to filter out your basic bigger-than-a-breadbox-type stuff.
Since they aren’t biodegradable, they have to be removed from the stream at the WWTP (along with tampon applicators and all the other incredibly stupid things people put down the toilet thinking it’ll just go away).
Waste water hits the WWTP and goes into large basins where, as was described, the heavier material settles out. The ones I’ve seen have a belt-driven rake that skims floating plastics etc (including condoms and other stuff) off the top of the basin. This material is sent to the landfill, just like other household garbage.
I’ve heard of cases of people who have septic tanks having them serviced and then being astonished at the thousands of condoms that are still in quite decent condition.
As plnnr said, the lighter stuff is raked off the top. My contact in waste water management tells me there’s a weekly peak from early Sunday to midday Monday. Allowing for travel time through the system, this seems to mean that most folks do their boinking on the weekends.
Slight hijack, but I wouldn’t flush anything except bodily waste and toilet paper, or you’re running a big risk of clogging your pipes. I wouldn’t even flush kleenex. I snaked out a big clog once and it was mainly dental floss and kleenex. And when the sink gets clogged, it’s mainly hair. None of that stuff breaks down.
Lots and lots of different brands of facial tissues have moisturizers in them, and those will tend to resist the action of water breaking the paper down, I suspect.
“Thousands”? Lawsy. If you’re getting your septic tank pumped every three or four years like you’re supposed to, and you’re finding thousands of condoms in it when you do, then you must be flushing a minimum of about ten condoms a week. :eek: What kind of establishment are these people running out there, anyway?
Blow your nose in toilet paper, then blow your nose in Kleenex. Toilet paper is made to dissolve in water. Facial tissue is made to be more resistant to moisture breakdown. They are both paper but they are designed for different uses.
If you don’t believe it, take two water glasses. Put a Kleenex in one and and similar amount of toilet tissue in the other. Add water and shake them up. See what is left after about 10 seconds of shaking.
If you’re extra special lucky you get to go fishing in the “cleaned waste water” lakes, and when it rains really hard for a day or two and you go down to the “lake” you get to see them floating on by with their good friend Ms. Used Tampon. Especially by the “warm water discharge” which is what they call them these days.
Then you get to watch people catch and keep fish out of said impoundment for eating purposes and you seriously consider that moving to Alaska might be a pretty good idea after all.
In cities where they have not yet separated the piping for the sewage system from the street gutters system, you will often see this after a heavy rain. These two sources of waste water are combined, and both run into the waste water treatment plant. But if these are overwhelmed, the water has to go somewhere, so the overflow of waste water goes out, without any treatment, into the river outlet.
And, even when separated, the rain water from streets, sidewalks, etc. goes down the gutters and drains directly into the nearest stream or lake, generally. Here in Minneapolis, we have messages painted near many gutters “Drains directly into — Lake”, to try to remind people not to dump unclean stuff, like used motor oil, etc. into these drains.
Many of the city parks around the lakes and creeks in Minneapolis are popular parking spots for couples on weekend nights. A heavy rain the next day will wash debris left on those parking areas into the gutters, which drain right into the creek. It’s not unheard of to see used condoms going over Minnehaha Falls the next day, on their way downstream in the Mississippi River.
You ever watch “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel hosted by Mike Rowe?
One of the jobs he did was to help change out a big motor at a sewate treatment plant. They mentioned that they regularly have to take out a large ball of used condoms from the entry level of the sewage. Secondly, if you watch him walking up and down the halls, there’s a non-trivial amount of used condoms on the floors, the stairs, the hallway, etc.
Basically, once you flush them, some city employee has to haul them out of the water treatment plant and throw them away, or he just slogs through them as he goes about his job.