this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2024
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UK Nature and Environment

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Wet wipes containing plastic are finally set to be banned across the UK as ministers warn a ‘step change’ is needed to protect the country’s rivers.

The long-awaited announcement comes after a campaign against the products which have been blamed for hundreds of thousands of blockages in the UK sewer system costing millions of pounds a year.

Manufacturers have also come under fire discarded wipes increasingly littering Britain's beaches.

Under plans to be set out by the environment secretary Steve Barclay it will become illegal to sell or supply wet wipes which contain plastic.

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[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This would be less of a problem if the sewage actually got filtered

[–] Emperor@feddit.uk 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It is usually passed through a mesh at sewage plants but that isn't going to stop fatbergs and other blockages before then. It's just simpler to make sure "flushable" wipes actually are flushable.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Those are called "toilet paper".

[–] Emperor@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Toilet? Paper? It's a novel concept (when he was a Uni, my brother used to use cut up pages from the Thomson Local Directory, so I suppose it is something like that) but I doubt it'd catch on.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago

Well... No Thompson directory anymore. So that explains that.