Yorkshire Water’s Halloweeny Horrors this Unblocktober

Its Unblocktober and to raise awareness of how small changes can make a big difference to the environment, Yorkshire Water's customer field service teams reveal some of the serial sewer fillers, repeat offenders and absolute horrors found lurking in sewers that give them nightmares in the run up to Halloween.

Blockages are serious business, the damage they can cause to the sewer system cost millions of pounds every year to fix and with over 20,000 miles of pipework across the region, that’s a hefty sum. 

However, around 40% of all blockages are caused by the wrong items being washed away in the sink or flushed down the pan. Only the three P’s, paper, pee and poo, should go down the loo. 

In 2023, our jetting teams cleared 31,485 blockages across Yorkshire.  From rubber ducks to suitcases, cutlery to seven t-shirts. Yet with small changes, many of these blockages needn’t happen.  Here’s a quick overview of some of the horror stories and biggest culprits that give our jetting team nightmares and the small steps you can take to stop them!

Fat Berg Ahead! 

Fats, oils and grease (FOG) are a major cause of blockages across the network.  They occur when hot fat or cooking oil is tipped down the sink, which then cools, coagulates and forms a big old blob or fatberg in the drainage system. Yorkshire’s biggest fatberg was found in Leeds, weighed 1.5 tonnes and took up 60% of the sewer space in some sections, as well as taking four nights for our teams to break down and remove!

Whilst fatbergs can cost a lot of money to remove, they’re relatively simple to avoid. Allowing cooking oil to cool and solidify, then wrapping it in kitchen towel then throwing in the bin stops mini-bergs from forming. Fat traps can be attached to the sink to stop FOG congealing in the pipework and are particularly effective for food outlets and the hospitality industry. Our teams work closely with food outlets in hotspot areas to help reduce fatbergs occurring.

In York, an innovative technique trialled over the last 12 months to reduce blockages caused by fats, oils and greases in the city’s sewers has reduced pollutions and sewage escapes caused by fats to zero. Yorkshire Water’s network protection, customer field services and innovation teams worked with Cobra Hydro to install its ‘Bio Pop’ dosing blocks within the sewer network in a first for large-scale deployment of the technology in the UK.

The dosing blocks are environmentally friendly and slowly dissolve in the sewer, releasing microbes and enzymes that help to break down fats, reducing the likelihood of blockages and helping to prevent pollution incidents.

On a larger scale, Yorkshire Water has partnered with EcoClarity at its Saltend wastewater treatment works, Hull, to pioneer a trial to transform sewer-clogging waste oils into sustainable fuel by harvesting FOG from the sewer network and turning it into biodiesel.  If successful, the trial has the potential to fuel the van fleet long term and is a great example of circular economy at work.

Flushing wipes blocks pipes! 

Even when the packaging says they’re flushable, wipes shouldn’t be flushed as they don’t break down in the sewer like toilet paper.  Non-flushable ones (according to the packaging) contain plastic and are not biodegradable so hang about in the environment forever.

They’re built to capture moisture and be strong, so guess what, when they’re flushed down the loo, that’s exactly what they do, capture moisture and stay strong.  They’re Peter Kay’s version of the hob-nob biscuit (IYKYK!), they’re tough, they’re sturdy and they’re a major cause of blockages. When pipes are blocked, they don’t just affect you, they affect your neighbours too – so the advice is always to bin it, don’t block it!

Items designed to soak up moisture are not designed to flush down the loo. It’s the job of nappies and sanitary products to soak up fluids expanding as they go. They’re made from material designed to expand when it meets water and other liquids, great for protection, not good for flushing down the loo where they carry on expanding and cause blockages in drains and sewer systems.  Only pee, paper or poo should go down the pan, everything else needs to be bagged and binned.

Hey Girls Partnership

Following a successful pilot this spring, Yorkshire Water, in partnership with Hey Girls, is rolling out its education programme to improve period dignity, educate young people about sustainable, reusable period products, and find an alternative method of disposal to flushing pads and tampons down the loo, which can cause blockages in the sewer network.

The education team will be delivering the education programme to a selected number of secondary schools from September.  As well as distributing period health starter kits,  the period health education sessions will feature where to access products and explain the benefits of sustainable products that can be better for the environment, the pocket and the sewer network.

Yorkshire Water has partnered with social enterprise organisation, Hey Girls, to provide 20,000 reusable, sustainable period packs to selected secondary schools across the region.  The project aims to stop nearly 500k sanitary products being flushed every year in Yorkshire.

Prevention is better than the cure

What does a boot, a tyre and a pump have in common? There all objects detected by Samotics smart technology and prevented from going into Yorkshire Water assets and causing severe damage.

Samotics smart tech allows early detection of possible asset failure by measuring performance, alerting Yorkshire Water’s customer field services teams that a blockage may be occurring, allowing them to attend the site and resolve it before it causes a problem in the local area or, even worse, a pollution to a watercourse.  There are 74 Samotics devices across the whole of Yorkshire and since April 2023 they have collectively prevented 61 potential blockages from occurring, which would have cost at least £170,000 to fix.  Samotics technology has also prevented 16 potential pollutions taking place across the region, protecting the environment from harm.

So that’s just a whistlestop tour of some of the horrors we see on a regular basis, how we resolve them and what we’re doing to prevent blockages in the network. It’s why we are supporting the Lanes Group Unblocktober campaign.  You can find lots of handy tips and helpful advice to make small changes that will make a big difference to the environment by checking out the website here: unblocktober.org