Divers spent two days deep inside a South Carolina sewer, pulling out huge balls of oily, black used wet wipes and baby wipes that had clogged intake pumps.
The Charleston Water System posted pictures of the masses of wipes on its Twitter account. It reminded people that only human waste and toilet tissue should be flushed. The cloth wipes, which have rapidly become popular, need to be thrown away because they are woven and don’t break down in water.
The system had to send in the divers nearly 100 feet (30 meters) into a sewer well after the wipes, congealed by grease and other items sent into the pipes, clogged the suction intake pumps to the Plum Island Wastewater Treatment Center on James Island.
