Have you ever tossed items like cleaning or disinfecting wipes, moist towelettes or personal hygiene wipes into the loo? I’m sure you have. I know I have at one time or another. Well, even items labeled as disposal are, in fact, NOT and cause all sorts of issues at your local processing plants. Even dental floss, which you may think is harmless, is incredibly strong and durable and gets tangled up in the pumps and equipment and binds all the other ickies together into large clogging clumpy masses.

So, don’t believe the product packaging. The only thing that should be flushed down the dunny is human waste and toilet paper.

Now, moving onto the sink…. Food scraps, especially greasy, fatty foods, rinsed down your garbage disposal unit can cause big, greasy clogs that cause no end of trouble. Putting it into your trash isn’t that good either. Approximately 30% of household waste is made up of food scraps and associated paper waste (containers, napkins and paper plates, etc). All of this ends up in your local landfill.

Instead this valuable resource could be recycled as compost or even energy.

Some of my local communities in Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda have established voluntary food scrap recycling programs with the local waste authority. All a resident has to do is place the food scraps with yard waste in the green cart. It is then collected as usual and recycled as compost used by nurseries and agricultural businesses.

Source: CCCSD PIPELINE