10 Things That Shouldn’t Be Dumped Down The Drain
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From working in the kitchen to showering in the bathroom, whenever you don’t find a dustbin, the drain serves as the dumping ground for all kinds of rubbish. For starters, it’s an easy solution for garbage disposal. At least, the kind of garbage that can fit through a pipe. And once you pour some water into it, the trash vanishes through the sinkhole forever.
Or does it?
To be honest, not everything you dump down the drain escapes into a void of nothingness. Quite a few of those ‘dumped’ items accumulate and give rise to what is known as a ‘clogged drain.’
So, unless you want to pay a sizable bill to get your drain unclogged, here are 10 things you should never dump down your drain!
1. Pasta And Rice
Food items such as pasta and rice are the first things that go down the drain, but they should be the last ones to end up there. Foods like pasta and rice absorb water and swell up over time, causing a dramatic increase in their size. And since it’s hard to dissolve them in water, what you’re left with is a very clogged drain.
2. Eggshells
It’s a common belief that if you crush eggshells and throw them into the drain, they won’t clog due to their teeny-tiny size. That’s far from the truth though. Those tiny pieces eventually get stuck to each other, creating a massive pile and a clogged drain.
3. Flour
Flour is sticky. And if you’ve ever made any dough, that is something you already know. So, once the water goes down the drain and flour is already there, you can expect a glue-like mixture to form right in the pipe. Also, expect other waste material to stick to this gooey glue and lead to clogging.
4. Medicine
Not all medicines are water-soluble. Especially not those in capsule form. So, if you throw them down your drain, don’t think that they’ll dissolve and there’ll be no trouble. The water will get contaminated if you do that, and there’s no water filter that can filter out medicine contamination. Hence, you might want to rethink disposing pills this way.
5. Hair
If there’s one item that’s most frequently dumped into the drain (read: shower drain), it’s hair. There’s not a bigger culprit than hair for bathroom drain clogging. Especially in houses populated by those with longer tresses. Hair in the drain can stick together and form a hairball, which can trap more waste material and cause a massive clog. The best way to dispose of strands of hair is to throw it in the trashcan.
6. Fruit Jar Stickers
This includes those from pickles, sauces, and jam jars too! No matter the size of these stickers, if you throw them into the drain, the glue on them will attract more dirt and debris, which you know the results of. Besides, stickers take forever to decompose. The smarter way to get rid of them is to throw them in a dustbin.
7. Building Waste
This includes stuff like small pieces of rocks, concrete, shards of glass, chips of wood, and even sawdust. Although this type of waste is pretty rare (only when you renovate your house), that in no way justifies throwing it down the drain. The big pieces of building waste will clog your drain and the smaller pieces may get lodged in the sides and crevices of the drain, leading to a lot of damage.
8. Cigarette Butts
Just like pasta and rice, cigarette butts once dumped down the drain can soak in water and expand. This is all thanks to the filter in them. Also, just like most of the items on this list, cigarette butts do not dissolve in water and stay there forever. Plus, cigarettes are composed of harmful chemicals such as nicotine, which acts as a water supply contaminant.
9. Condoms
Although it’s quite an unusual way to dispose of condoms, it is certainly not the approach. Condoms are made of latex – a substance that is practically insoluble in water. Besides, the latex in them can cause them to stretch out of shape and get stuck on the inside of your pipes. But that’s not all. Condoms can fill up with water or other debris present in your drain, making them the perfect recipe for a surefire drain disaster.
10. Tampons
Throwing tampons down the drain is a bad idea, to say the least. Tampons are designed to soak in moisture, and when they do that, they expand quite a bit, causing a clog that is very hard to fix. The dramatic increase in their size leaves no passage for anything else to pass through, which means you will need professional help to fix this.
If you’ve ever used your drains to dispose of any of these items, don’t do it again. The price of getting a drain unclogged is not one worth paying, knowing that you could’ve prevented this disaster by using the dustbin!
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