Diversion

Avoid blocking your drain

Your drain is all the piping between your sinks, your shower (or bath), your toilet, and your gully traps, and the sewer pipe at the edge of your property, or your septic tank.  If it blocks, you call a plumber to fix it.

Five things block drains -- tree roots, subsidence, lime scale, rust, and people putting the wrong things into the drain.

We at FOG-Catcher call that last cause "Household Sewer Pollution".  We divide it into two types - FOG (Fat, Oil and Grease) and "Sewer Litter".

Sewage should contain only:

  1. human waste and toilet paper,
  2. water used for washing yourself, your clothes, your food and your cooking things.

Nothing else.

If only those things went down the drain, everything would be fine with the drains.  And cheaper.

List of things which should not be in the sewers

Pile of bad things


What sort of things shouldn't go down the sink, toilet and gully trap?  Here's a list of the most commonly found ones.

  • Fat, oil and grease (FOG)
  • Commercial food waste, including that from maceration units
  • Disposable nappies
  • Domestic food waste, including that from waste disposal units
  • Sanitary products
  • Plastic items (including bottles and bottle tops)
  • Needles and syringes
  • Supermarket bags, crisp [chippie] packets, plastic bags and wrappers
  • Old clothing and rags
  • Cement and building materials
  • Condoms
  • Rubble
  • Cotton buds
  • Medicines
  • Old toys
  • Timber
  • Tights
  • Razor blades
  • Chemicals
  • General household and garden waste
  • Dead pets and pet waste
  • Hygienic waste; colostomy bags, incontinence pads, etc., including that from industrial maceration units
  • Brushes (including toilet brushes)

How do you avoid blocking your drain? -- Don't put the wrong things into it.