Incredible to hear, but wet wipes are re-shaping British riverbeds. Indeed some campaigners from the association Thames 21 found more than 5,000 of them in the river Thames. The organization cleans up rivers and canal and last month they collected 5,453 wet wipes near Hammersmith, about a thousand more of last year’s total.
Kirsten Downer is a campaigner. She said: «You need to go at low tide to see the mounds forming. The Thames riverbed is changing». According to Kirsten, «wet wipes are accumulating on the riverbed and affecting the shape of the riverbed. It looks natural but when you get close you can see that these clumps are composed of wet wipes mixed with twigs and mud».
Altough wet wipes’ is an expanding sector, their environmental impact could be very dangerous. The cotton woven of wipes, together with plastic resins such as polyester or polypropylene, are not biodegradable. Downer explain that «people get confused and don’t realise that you are not supposed to flush wet wipes down the toilet».
A report by Water UK shows that wet wipes represented the 93% of the material causing blockages in sewerages. Thames 21 is collaborating with City to Sea to make people aware of this risk. «We want people to realise that this is not just happening on the Thames, but on rivers and canals all round the country – Downer claims – All the time we were working, people kept coming to ask what we were doing. People are far more upset and concerned about the plastics problem than they ever have been».
Show Comments