Support for an International Wastewater Consortium about Flushable Products

A large and growing informal international consortium of wastewater services has recently published as a public statement, their views on flushable products. It can be found at:

http://www.cwwa.ca/pdf_files/International_flushability_statement.pdf

There are over 180 national and regional wastewater associations supporting the Consortium Statement, and they are asking for support from Canadian wastewater utilities.

The statement was triggered by the recently renewed and persistent advertising campaign by flushable product manufacturers stating that their products are flushable and meet Industry Guidelines for flushability which are accepted and satisfactory. This is the industry response to the increasing amount of public news items about clogging and plugging problems faced by wastewater services.

The advertisements relate to the INDA/EDANA Guideline Document 3 (GD3), which standards have been challenged by wastewater services in North America led by NACWA and WEF, and in which CWWA has been participating. GD3 standards have also been found by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to be not satisfactory. The wastewater services statement makes it clear what are the critical conditions acceptable to wastewater services for use of the word "flushable," and that these conditions must be adhered to.

If you are willing to support this statement, and to do so by sharing your corporate logo which would be posted on the statement pages, please send your logo (as a minimum 300 dpi jpeg file), to Clare Pillinger at cPillinger@anglianwater.co.uk  who will forward it to the Water UK staff who are hosting the Statement. Please send Duncan Ellison (duncan.ellison@videotron.ca) a copy of your message to Clare so he can keep you apprised of developments.