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- Your Toilet is not a Trashcan!
Your Toilet is not a Trashcan!
These items should NOT go down the toilet or drain
- Wipes
- Tissues & paper towels
- Dental floss
- Tampons & sanitary pads
- Clumping cat litter
- Condoms
- Oil-based hand scrubs
- Cotton swabs and cotton balls
- Medicines
- Rags
- Oil or grease
These items do not biodegrade easily or quickly. Wipes, feminine hygiene products, and other paper materials can get stuck in the narrow sanitary sewer service lateral that connects homes and businesses to the city’s wastewater collection system. And if grease or other congealing products are poured down the kitchen sink, these attach to the wipes, causing “fatbergs” to form. The result can be clogged pipes, sewage back-ups into homes, and potentially expensive repairs. Even if these materials make it through your property’s private sewer service lateral, they can cause problems down the line.
Trenton Sewer Utility use pumps to keep sewage moving through elevation changes. Anything other than toilet paper, which dissolves quickly, can get caught on screens that guard pumps or worse, get through the screens and clog or break the pumps. City workers are spending an increasing amount of time repairing pumps and clearing screens of debris that ends up getting hauled to a landfill.