Flushing is NOT Environmentally Savvy

At the Baby Purity Conference we spoke to a number of moms out there that were under the impression that flushing things down the toilet was more environmentally savvy than throwing things away in the garbage. Corina touched on this a bit in her blog post on g-Diapers.

I have noticed that since the announcement of the discontinuation of Tushies and Tendercare products, we have had a number of hits on Better Baby Bums’s website from people looking for flushable wipes (Tendercare wipes were flushable). This has prompted me to post this to clarify that flushing things down the toilet does not magically make things disappear. Nor does it cause things to really break down.

I highly recommend taking your kids for a tour of a local wastewater management plant. You will find it interesting too. As part of my old job at an environmental NGO, I have had the pleasure of going on a number of these tours in Langley. I have to say that I was quite surprised by what I learned as I too, was a flush it and forget it-type.

When flushing wipes or g-Diaper refills down the toilet, once the waste and wastewater make it to the treatment plant, the solids are separated from the liquids via a number of different processes. My personal favourite was a machine that spun in circles, like a roller, that caught all of the hair, toilet paper and corn out of the water. Yes, corn. Seems it doesn’t digest or break down at all.

Once the solids are removed, some are composted (in only certain facilities since composting human waste is a bit taboo in this country), and the rest is sent to the landfill. In our case, our main landfill is so full that some waste is actually being sent by truck to Alberta instead.

So flushing is not an environmental solution to our diapering and wiping issues. I would argue that flushing may even be worse than sending these items to the landfill. By flushing wipes and g-Diaper refills, we are using more energy (the energy at the wastewater management plant), more water (as Corina pointed out in her post), and endangering water quality since ultimately the water is released into a local waterway (in our case, the mighty Fraser River).

So there you have it. Don’t flush it! Compost or choose a brand of diaper and biodegradable waste bags that will at least give your diapers a chance to break down in the landfill. Namely, Nature Babycare.