“Wet wipes are now one of the biggest challenges we face in the collection system of the Charleston Water Supply System,” said Baker Mordecai, the system’s wastewater collection supervisor. Wipes have been a problem in the wastewater system for decades, but this problem has accelerated in the past 10 years and has worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wet wipes and other materials have long-standing problems. They do not dissolve like toilet paper, leading to lawsuits against companies that manufacture and sell wet wipes. The most famous brand is Kimberly-Clark. The company’s brands include Huggies, Cottonelle and Scott, which were brought to court by the water supply system in Charleston, South Carolina. According to Bloomberg News, the Charleston System reached a settlement with Kimberly-Clark in April and requested injunctive relief. The agreement stipulates that the company’s wet wipes marked as “washable” must meet the wastewater industry standard by May 2022.
Over the years, this wiping problem has cost the Charleston water supply system hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the past five years, the system has invested US$120,000 on the bar-shaped screen of the entry channel—only capital costs, not including operating and maintenance costs. “This helps us to remove the wipes before they cause any type of damage to any downstream equipment (mainly processing plants),” Mordecai said.
The largest investment was in the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) of the system’s 216 pumping stations, which cost USD 2 million in eight years. Preventive maintenance, such as wet well cleaning, mainline cleaning and screen cleaning at each pumping station, also constitutes a large investment. Most of the work was done internally, but external contractors were brought in to help intermittently, especially during the pandemic—another $110,000 was spent.
Although Mordecai said that the Charleston water supply system has been dealing with wipes for decades, the pandemic has exacerbated the problem. Mordecai said that the system used to have two pumps clogged per month, but this year there have been 8 more plugs per month. In the same time frame, the main line congestion also increased from 2 times a month to 6 times a month.
“We think a large part of this is because people are doing additional disinfection,” he said. “They apparently clean their hands more frequently. All these rags are accumulating in the sewer system.”
Prior to COVID-19, the Charleston Water Supply System cost US$250,000 per year to manage wipes alone, which will increase to US$360,000 by 2020; Mordecai estimates that it will spend an additional US$250,000 in 2021, totaling more than US$500,000.
Unfortunately, despite the reallocation of work, these additional costs of managing wipes are usually passed on to customers.
“At the end of the day, what you have is that customers buy wipes on the one hand, and on the other hand, they see an increase in the sewer costs of wipes,” Mordechai said. “I think consumers sometimes overlook a cost factor.”
Although the pandemic has eased this summer, the blockage of Charleston’s water supply system has not decreased. “You would think that as people return to work, the number will decrease, but we haven’t noticed this so far,” Mordecai said. “Once people develop a bad habit, it is difficult to get rid of this habit.”
Over the years, Charleston staff have carried out some educational activities to let utility users understand that flushing wipes can cause further degradation of the system. One is the “Wipes Clog Pipes” event that Charleston and other regional utilities participated in, but Mordecai said these events have only achieved “minimal success”.
In 2018, the staff launched a social media campaign to promote clogs and photos of divers unclogging clogs with their hands, which was widely disseminated globally, affecting more than 1 billion people. “Unfortunately, the number of wipes we saw in the collection system was not significantly affected,” said Mike Saia, a public information administrator. “We didn’t see any change in the number of wipes we took out of the screen and from the wastewater treatment process.”
What the social movement has done is to draw attention to the lawsuits filed by sewage treatment companies across the United States and make the Charleston water system the focus of everyone’s attention.
“Due to this viral endeavor, we have become the actual face of the wipes problem in the United States. Therefore, due to our visibility in the industry, the main legal work that the entire court is doing has suspended and adopted us as their main plaintiff,” Saia Say.
The lawsuit was filed against Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble, CVS, Walgreens, Costco, Target and Walmart in January 2021. Prior to the lawsuit, the Charleston Water Supply System was in private negotiations with Kimberly Clark. Saia stated that they wanted to settle with the manufacturer, but could not reach an agreement, so they filed a lawsuit.
When these lawsuits were filed, the staff of the Charleston Water Supply System wanted to make sure that the wipes labeled “flushable” were actually flushable, and that they would “spread out” in time and in a way that would not cause clogging or additional maintenance issues. . The lawsuit also includes requiring manufacturers to provide consumers with better notice that non-washable wipes are not washable.
“Notices should be sent out at the point of sale and use in the store, that is, on the packaging,” Saiya said. “This focuses on the’do not rinse’ warning protruding from the front of the package, ideally right where you take the wipes out of the package.”
Lawsuits regarding wipes have existed for many years, and Saia stated that this is the first settlement of “any substance”.
“We commend them for developing a real washable wipes and agreed to put better labels on their non-washable products. We are also pleased that they will continue to improve their products,” Saia said.
Evi Arthur is the associate editor of Pumps & Systems magazine. You can contact her at earthur@cahabamedia.com.
Post time: Sep-04-2021