Don’t Flush These Items!

When getting septic pumping near me in North Liberty, Iowa, you’ve noticed a large amount of debris that you were shocked was still in the tank. This situation occurs to many homeowners who use their toilets like a magical disposal portal. Unfortunately, the toilet is not magic, and that waste ends up somewhere, and it usually ends up inside of – and damaging – your septic tank.

The following items are among the most commonly found at the bottom of septic tanks during the cleaning process. Each of them either doesn’t break down or degrades so slowly that they stay in your septic tank longer than necessary. Thankfully, we have included a few disposal suggestions for each item to ensure that you get rid of them in a way that doesn’t negatively affect your home in any way.

Butts from Cigarettes or Cigars

If you smoke in your home and have filled ashtrays, you may be tempted to chuck them down the toilet. After all, these butts are quite small and will typically flush very easily. More so, they are biodegradable and will eventually breakdown in your septic tank. However, the keyword in this scenario is “eventually.” Unfortunately, these butts take longer than you might think to disappear.

Since you’re probably dumping a large number of butts each time you empty your ashtrays, you are only making the situation worse. Sadly, the cigarette butts can stay clogged up in your septic tank for months at a time and will only get worse if you continue to smoke. Instead, take your ashtrays and dump them into a garbage bag, making sure that no smoldering embers are still lit to cause a fire.

Baby-Related Waste

No matter how tempting it is to put a diaper in a toilet – and even if the diaper does flush easily – you should keep them out of your septic tank whenever possible. These diapers typically don’t decompose that well and often end up clogging up your drain and your septic tank, compromising septic pumping near me and making the process more difficult for the professionals to handle on their own.

As a result, you should do what your parents did before you – wrap up each diaper in a plastic or paper bag and throw it in a garbage bin, preferably outside. You may also want to have a separate hamper for your diapers to get an idea of how many you use during the days and weeks. However, you should always keep diapers – no matter which kind – out of the toilet and septic tank.

Coffee Waste

Though you may think that your coffee grounds would flush easily down a toilet, any specialist in septic pumping near me will tell you that coffee is not a great item to flush. Simply put, the grains have a terrible tendency to cling to various elements of your plumbing and refuse to flush. Even worse, the grounds have a hard time breaking down in your septic tank and may start to gather.

If you’re a heavy coffee drinker and dump multiple pots of grains down the drain, you’re only making the situation worse. Professional septic pumping near me often finds dozens of pounds of coffee grounds at the bottom of many septic tanks. So do the sensible thing and throw them in the garbage instead. You can even compost your grains and use them in a garden instead.

Waste from Your Cat

Although cats make lovely pets in many situations, their litter is one of the worst things about owning them. Many cat owners try to get rid of their litter by dumping all of it down the toilet at once. This step is very unwise – cat litter does not break down very quickly and is designed to absorb water and waste. As a result, it is likely to stay in your septic tank for months and even years.

While you could remove cat waste from the litter with a scoop and flush it down the toilet instead, even this step isn’t a good choice. Even a few small grains of litter clinging to the waste could collect up over time and create a real issue. Instead, place a liner for your cat litter at the bottom of the box and pull it out every time you’re ready to change the diaper. In this way, you can get rid of it quickly and efficiently.

Lint of Any Kind

The lint from a clothes dryer needs to be regularly removed to ensure that your dryer doesn’t experience any increased fire risk. Just as importantly, this lint needs to be disposed of in a way that makes sense. For example, throwing it in a garbage bin is a great choice, particularly if you wrap it in plastic to ensure that it doesn’t catch a stray spark. However, you should never flush this lint down the toilet or into your septic tank.

Lint is made up of small bits of clothes fiber that fall off whenever you dry your clothes. Many of these fibers are synthetic, which means that they won’t break down in your septic tank. And while an occasional flush of dryer lint may not seem like a big deal, remember that those grains will be in your container for a long time. They could very quickly collect and cause issues with septic pumping near me over a lengthy period.

Napkins for Female Sanitation

Flushed sanitary napkins are one of the biggest problems for septic tanks because many are made out of plastic and other materials that don’t break down that easily. While it is understandably more comfortable to simply flush these napkins after use – it probably seems the most sanitary thing to do – women who use them should keep them out of the toilet as much as possible to keep their septic tank strong.

Instead, they should have small plastic bags near the toilet where they can store these napkins after use. The plastic bags should be large enough to hold at least one napkin. After the napkin is wrapped in the plastic, you can throw it in a typical garbage bag to keep it from getting down the toilet. Many septic professionals have cleaned out tanks only to find thousands of these napkins at the bottom.

Contact Professionals Today

As you can see, there are many items that should never make their way down your toilet and into your septic tank. Simply put, the best step here is never to flush anything that isn’t toilet paper or your waste. Even items like dental floss, toothpaste, soap, and much more can be a problem because your toilet simply wasn’t designed to handle these items and may run into operational issues as a result.

So if you need septic pumping near me in North Liberty, Iowa and you want professionals who you know you can trust, please contact us at Brown Concrete & Backhoe right away to learn more. We have years of experience working in this field and will work hard to ensure that your septic tank gets pumped out in an efficient manner. We can also help repair any damage that these items may have caused.