Yorkshire Water has called for the manufacturers of wet wipes and other single-use sanitary items containing plastic to be made to pay for the costs associated with their use.
The company's director of wastewater, Ben Roche, said: “We are… calling for the government to increase responsibility of manufacturers of all single use sanitary items to cover cost of educating customers about correct methods of disposal, and the clean-up costs that come from incorrect disposal. We [use] millions of pounds of customers’ bills, money which could be better spent elsewhere, to clear these blockages and believe this cost should be covered by manufacturers of wet wipes and plastic-containing sanitary products.”
Yorkshire Water has backed Putney MP Fleur Anderson’s Bill to ban plastic in wet wipes and called for further measures on top. These included banning plastic in all single use sanitary items, ending Fine to Flush labelling and mandating 'Do Not Flush’ labelling on single use sanitary items.
Roche explained: “We have concerns that the current ‘Fine to Flush‘ standard is not reflective of real-world customer behaviour and means many products that pass the standard still have the potential to cause blockages. The standard sends a confusing message to customers and therefore makes behaviour change more difficult. We believe the government should introduce mandatory ‘Do Not Flush’ labelling of single use sanitary items to remove confusion around what can and can’t be flushed down the toilet.”
Peers last week pressed Lord Benyon to take urgent action to regulate the disposal of wet wipes, given cross party support. Lord Benyon appreciated the urgency but said the plan was for responses to the Government’s Call for Evidence – launched to explore the options – to inform next steps. He said: “The Government wish to reflect the cross-party support for action on this, and will be moving quickly, following this call for evidence and the analysis of it. We are, in spirit, behind the Bill [Anderson’s]…but we think there are more complications that we want to iron out before we bring forward legislation.”
The UK uses 11bn wet wipes per year and 90% of those contain plastic. In 2021, 45% of the blockages Yorkshire Water removed from the sewer network were caused by wipes. Across the water industry, blockages caused by wipes cost around £100m to clear.
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