Sydney Water threatens legal action as wipes block drains

Wet wipes as strong as "kevlar" are blocking toilets across Sydney, says veteran plumber Ken Johnston, who manually removed a 12-metre-block of wipes that a Sydney family had flushed down the toilet.

Mr Johnston has removed all sorts of wipes flushed down toilets in homes, offices, churches and businesses, including the Australian Museum and the Art Gallery of NSW, where the wipes caused sewage pipes to overflow into a gallery.
Plumber Ken Johnston had to use industrial shears to hack out eight garbage bags of clogged wet wipes after a family ...
Plumber Ken Johnston had to use industrial shears to hack out eight garbage bags of clogged wet wipes after a family flushed them down the toilet. Photo: Ken Johnston
"They're almost like kevlar, and they don't break apart," said Mr Johnston of the solid masses of wipes that are commonly called fatbergs. Household fats congeal around them to form a hard block, which Mr Johnston likened to "Sunlight soap."
When they snag on a pipe or a tree root, they snowball, with one after another getting trapped. Often he has to remove them by hand, using industrial shears to cut them from an electric eel, which retrieves them from within pipes.

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Taxonomy

• Sewage
• Sewer Networks