By cn
Urban water sanitation and drainage systems have the function of cleaning wastewater before returning them to a natural environment or to reuse them. Through them both the dirty waters of the buildings and those of general sewerage networks are transported. And for these systems to develop the task for which they have been designed with greater efficiency and efficiency, it is essential that the waters that transport to the wastewater purification stations (EDAR) are free of unwanted solid waste.
An important part of them can be avoided perfectly: wet wipes, rods, gum, compresses, fluff or other solid waste that should never be thrown at toilets. They can cause serious damage to both the interior facilities of the homes and in the sewer network and in the treatment plants. However, pulling waste that should go to the garbage can be a bad practice too widespread. A bad individual custom that, practiced by many people, is a threat to both urban water sanitation infrastructures and water ecosystems.
There is a very easy solution to avoid it: once used, wet wipes you have to throw them into the paper or garbage cube. To the rest of the waste, specifically. In other words, shorter and clear: wet wipes are not thrown into the toilet.
What do the wipes do when they are not?
Due to its composition and form of elaboration,-cellulose fibers and a textile framework-and unlike the toilet paper-which is completely dissolved in a short time-, they do not degrade quickly enough and reach intact to the purification plants. There they can get tangled in bars, sieves and pumps and form tangs that can collapse and leave the pumping systems that raise wastewater to purification plants inoperative. These elements can be out of service and require the intervention of operators to unblock them: a high and avoidable risk for these workers.
The risk of contamination for rivers and channels is also undeniable. It may happen that, in storm episodes, the flow that circulates through the sanitation network exceeds its maximum capacity and, in many occasions, it is directly relieved to streams and rivers, carrying that water with the solid waste that drags.
To minimize this problem, in many Aliviaderos Canal de Isabel II it has placed baskets and retention systems, which are still palliative measures to contain waste that should not end in sanitation networks that, in the Community of Madrid they travel about 15,000 kilometers and have about 1,200 relief. Of these, about 300 have been equipped with devices to retain waste, which are always placed leaving a free hole in drainage driving, in such a way that it allows the water to pass when the baskets are filled
These systems retain solid waste: a good part are wet wipes, personal hygiene products, rags and other waste yielded to the toilet or the road. Only last year the public company caught and withdrew about 2,000 tons of solid waste in spillways.
Decomunal figures that, on the other hand, only represent a small part of the waste with which the Madrid water company must constantly battle. And it is that Channel withdraws every year from its treatment plants plus 30,000 tons of wet waste: just over 33,000 in 2024. These figures translate into that, on average, each Madrid pours annually by the toilet more than 4 kilos of garbage.
Once the waste of treatment plants, pumping stations or spillways are removed, they take to landfills: the destination to which they should have gone from the outset if they had deposited in a paper or in the garbage can.
Lying with these discharges to the sanitation network is an extra cost in system management, which Isabel II channel has quantified in an average figure of 13 million euros per year. This amount includes withdrawal costs, the extra labor costs for the cleaning of the pumps, the replacement of those that are inoperative and the increase in the energy invoice. To this we must add the investments made in the treatment plants so that these waste does not compromise the functioning of these facilities, fundamental to public health and environmental quality of rivers and plant ecosystems.
Encouze the wipes in the paper: the easiest and most cheap
This whole chain of complications is perfectly avoidable and the definitive solution is at the origin: throwing the urban wipes and solid waste to the paper or the garbage cube. To the toilet, only urine, feces and toilet paper. Of course, it requires that each and every one of the people who integrate citizens aware of the destructive consequences that the toilet as a garbage can use.
Therefore, with the intention of raising awareness and awareness of this issue, Canal de Isabel II encourages Madrid to bristle the wipes in the paper to take care of the water and the environment.