Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure that all (a) sanitary and (b) toilet products are accurately labelled as flushable.

Most sanitary products and many toilet products are not flushable. If disposed of by being flushed down a toilet, they can cause sewer blockages and harm to the environment. The water industry has conducted research into blockages, which suggests baby wipes are one of the main items causing them.

In November 2016, a Defra Ministerial roundtable meeting with the water industry and the wipe manufacturers’ representative body was held to address sewer blockages. It resulted in improved industry labelling to indicate more clearly those wipe products, particularly baby wipes, that should not be flushed.

Since then the water industry has also devised a new ‘fine to flush’ standard for wipe products, covering largely moist toilet tissue. If products pass strict industry standards, manufacturers of wipes can feature an official water industry ‘Fine to Flush’ symbol on their packaging. This symbol is starting to be seen on an increasing number of products.

This standard requires that these products do not contain plastic and break up upon entering a sewer, therefore entering the sewage system without causing blockages or harming the environment.