How to keep your pipes clear at home
Small changes in your kitchen and bathroom make a big difference to keeping our water flowing and your bills down. By only letting water go down your sink or loo, you help the water cycle. It makes it easier and cheaper for us to treat water and return it back to the environment.
Put your waste in the bin or, where possible, recycle oil and food waste in your doorstep food caddy collection or home composting. Don’t flush it. Thank you for helping us to Keep It Clear.
How you can help in the kitchen
Used water is the only thing you should put down your sink.
Here are some good ways to prevent bad smells and blockages:
- wrap semi-solid fat in kitchen towel or newspaper and put these in your landfill bin (or food waste bin if permitted in your area)
- soak up small amounts of used, cooled cooking oil in newspaper or kitchen towel and bin them, either to landfill or food waste if allowed
- when it is cool, pour used cooking oil into a sealed plastic bottle and take it to your nearest household waste recycling centre for recycling. Check with your local council for details
- whether they’re leftovers or peelings, food scraps should never go down the sink. They should be recycled or composted at home, taken to a household waste recycling centre or binned, depending on where you live
- sink strainers will catch the smaller scraps that you might rinse off your plate after a meal, but can still clog your pipes
- fat in the sewers is pretty disgusting. If you’d like to see for yourself, watch our video showing the build-up of fat down a sewer.
In the bathroom
The three ‘Ps’ (pee, poo and toilet paper) are the only things that should go down the loo.
What to do to keep it clear:
- a bin is the best place for all your unflushable waste. Put one by the loo, so nobody’s tempted to flush rubbish
- put wipes, cotton wool, floss and cotton buds in the bin
- use bags or toilet paper to discreetly dispose of sanitary products waste – again, in the bin
- sink strainers are good at catching hair that could otherwise block the plughole in your shower or bath.
How does keeping things clear help?
We can all take action to ensure cleaned water is returned safely to rivers and seas by keeping waste out of our sinks and toilets. If we all recycle where we can and use bins for our waste, it can also save us time and money.
Keeping things clear also means we use less water and carbon in unblocking sewer pipes and pumps, – it’s all part of our overall aim to love every drop.