Everyone knows that you shouldn’t pour cooking oils and fats down your household drains, but we still find ourselves being called out to properties with blocked drains which have been caused by things being put down drains which shouldn’t be there.
Cooking oils and fats cause trouble in drains when they come into contact with cold water and then solidify. The grease clings to pipes and can build over time until you have a fully blocked drain and need to call someone for help!
We also come across a variety of objects which have been flushed or put down drains which do much the same thing. These often include kids toys, sanitary products, flushable wipes (or not-so-flushable 
wipes, as we like to call them), but we’ve also found random objects such as tennis balls, rubber gloves and others which have no place being in a drain!
Not only does this affect individual households, but it can become a problem for the community when these types of obstructions and objects end up in city mains. In 2013 this exact problem lead to a ‘fat berg’ which was reported in London. This lump of lard was over 15 tonnes and threatened to leak raw sewerage out onto the streets as the pipes had been so severely obstructed they were reduced to only 5% of capacity!
Photo credit: Polylok.com
Recently one of these monster blockages was also discovered lurking underneath Melbourne, so let’s not allow it to happen to Canberra as well!
Remember:
- – Used cooking oils, fats and grease solidify if poured down drains and can cling to your pipes and create blockages in your sewer.
- – Always dispose of cooking and food waste in the bin and not the drain
- – Don’t flush, pour or otherwise insert any foreign object down drains
