“Grease cake” is not a recipe for success in Public Works Director Tom Wetor’s kitchen.
And there’s nothing completely handy and harmless about wiping up a mess and flushing it down the toilet.
It all clogs up the pumps, screens and equipment at Wrangell’s sewage treatment plant.
“It’s definitely a constant problem,” Wetor said, so much so that the borough sends out a reminder every year to residents about what not to dump into their sinks, tubs and toilets.
“You’d be amazed at how those wipes clump together,” twisting into a rope around the pumps, capable of shorting out the motors.
The pumps, filters and treatment system work well with organic waste but wet wipes, feminine hygiene products and condoms “all do a number on our collection system,” Wetor said.
It doesn’t matter if the package of wet wipes says flushable or biodegradable. They still clog up the equipment.
Cooking grease is another messy culprit. “You should not be dumping down the sink the full skillet of bacon grease,” he said. It can clog the pipes at home and become an even bigger blockage as it joins together with grease from other homes and solidifies in sewage pipes and at borough pump stations.
Those “grease cakes” can be a foot thick when they form at pump stations around town, requiring the Public Works crew to use a pressure washer to blast apart the clog so that the borough’s vacuum truck can suck up and remove the pieces of cake.
About two or three times a year, the cakes will ruin a sensor at a pump station, costing about $1,500 each time to replace the equipment, Wetor said.
The grease and wipes problem aren’t unique to Wrangell.
Brian Schmitz is among the crew at Anchorage’s Asplund Wastewater Treatment Facility who clears the wipes that people flush down their toilets but which congeal on their way through the sewage system and gunk up the expensive equipment.
His job includes “de-ragging” equipment. “Rags” are what workers in the water treatment business call consumer products known as “wipes” — baby wipes, disinfectant wipes and “personal cleansing wipes” that are used like toilet paper, with names like Dude Wipes, Stall Mates and GoodWipes Flushable Butt Wipes.
Manufacturers declare on the packaging that the items are “flushable,” but the claim doesn’t always hold water. They flush all right, but unlike toilet paper, most wipes don’t break down in water.
“We call ‘em ‘rope rags,’” Schmitz said, referring to when wipes get spun, mashed and twisted around one another until the mass grows so large it torments screening equipment at the Anchorage plant. Workers periodically extract the rope rags with chains, pitchforks and a custom-made treble hook that looks like a tool for fishing giant squid.
The Anchorage treatment plant, the largest in Alaska, can receive between 6,000 and 7,000 pounds of wipes a day.
Seven states have passed legislation mandating that wipe products be clearly labeled as non-flushable. Alaska is not one of the seven.
This story includes reporting by Zachariah Hughes of the Anchorage Daily News.
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