Trash it, Don’t Flush it!

Wipes, paper towels, and other "unflushables" can create a sewer backup in your home. Flush only toilet paper and protect your home, the sewer system, and the environment.

Use a trash can instead of the toilet to dispose of used wipes, hygiene products and other items that don’t break down, like toilet paper.

Even if the label says “flushable”, wipes and other trash can build up in the sewer system and cause overflows that might damage property, hurt the environment, or make people sick.

Flooding and Sewer Backups

Man with drain clogTrash and liquefied fat, oil, or grease that is poured down the sink add or flushed down the toilet can cling to the insides of pipes and sewers. Over time it can build up and block pipes completely. When wastewater can’t move freely through the sewer system due to these blockages, it can cause flooding in local neighborhoods and sewer backups in your home!

Sewer backups happen when raw sewage can’t flow through the sewer system and is forced back into your home. Wipes—yes, even “flushable” ones, and other material that doesn’t break down in water may clear your toilet, but they can get caught in your internal plumbing. 

Damage to Wastewater Treatment Plants

Liquified fat, oil and greaseWhen wipes and other trash aren’t busy causing clogs in our sewers systems, they are wreaking havoc on our wastewater treatment plants! These materials don’t break down in the sewer system like toilet paper, so they arrive at our plants jamming mechanisms, clogging pumps, and breaking critical machinery, costing us all a lot of money in repairs.

What Goes in the Toilet?

What goes in the toilet? Remember the three Ps: poo, pee, and toilet paper. 

Phone:503-742-4567
Fax:503-742-4565

150 Beavercreek Road #430, Oregon City, OR 97045

Office Hours:

Lobby hours
Monday to Thursday
7:30 a.m.–noon and 1–5 p.m.

Phone hours
Monday to Thursday
7:30 a.m.–noon and 1–5 p.m.

Email:
Customer service
wescustomerservice@clackamas.us

Development services and permits
wes-permitservices@clackamas.us

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