Candy Wrappers Blocking Sewer In England

A private water utility in England said "unusual items" that turned out to be a mass of candy wrappers were responsible for a sewer blockage.

Southern Water, which provides water and wastewater treatment services to more than 2.25 million customers in southeast England, said its investigators were exploring a sewer blockage in Shoreham when they found "stacks of sweet wrappers" had caused the problem.

The utility said its "block-buster teams" sometimes find unusual items blocking sewers, from crowbars to cat litter, but most of the 50,000 blocked wastewater pipes they investigate each year are caused by wet wipes in toilets or fat, oil and grease down kitchen sinks.

"Fortunately my team located the blockage and cleared the sweet wrappers before there was any internal flooding," Alex Saunders, Head of Wastewater Networks, said in a statement. He said that Southern Water considers sweet wrappers to be on the "unflushable" list.

"When we're warning people to only put hthe "three Ps" down the loo — poo, pee and paper — instead of 'unflushables' like wet wipes and sanitary products, we include sweet wrappers in that list," Saunders said.

Southern Water said that with more than 24,855 miles of sewers in its service area, it's "vital" that residents not put the wrong things down toilets or sinks, and that they report problems as quickly as possible. The utility said sewer blockages are the most common cause of pollution incidents, spilling sewage into waterways, harming wildlife, destroying gardens, and in the worst cases, flooding inside properties.

"The addition of more than 22,000 artificial intelligence monitors which detect when sewers in blockage 'hotspots' are backing up is changing the game and enabling us to get to far more blockages before the problem turns into a crisis," Saunders said.

-With TMX