'Flushable' wipes (and mop heads) plugging up Whitehorse's sewage system

The City of Whitehorse says changing consumer habits are causing a lot of grief for sewage workers.

Gabriel Lefebvre,assistant manager of Water and Waste Services, says items such as disposable wipes, feminine hygiene products and paper towels are pluggingup sewage pumps more often than in the past.

He says items described as "flushable"usually aren't.

"It's not necessarily the size, it is that they don't degrade the same wayas toilet paper would," he says.

"They basically just jam up in our pumps and we can't get them out and with more wipes coming in, it just creates a huge backlog."

Thejams have to be manually cleaned out andLefebvre saysthat's costing the city as much as $300,000a year.

Lefebvre says people have even been flushing mop heads into the sewer system, although he's not sure how they're doing it.

He says disposable items should be going into the garbage, with the exception of paper towels which can be composted.