The aim is to draw attention to the huge damage that single-use, non-degradable wipes do to our water systems and marine environment when they are flushed.
The 10 Minute Rule Bill to ban plastic in the manufacture and sale of wet wipes will have its first reading in Parliament today (Tuesday).
It is backed by a cross-party group of MPs and environmental organisations, including the Marine Conservation Society, Thames 21, the Green Alliance and the WWF, as well as Thames Water.
The disposal of single-use, non-degradable wet wipes is a growing problem and is a leading cause of harm for our water systems and marine environments. The equivalent of 163 wet wipes per person are used in the UK alone every year.
The plastic in wet wipes breaks down into microplastics, which can be ingested by marine and riverine animals, and are entering into our food chain and water supply.
The environmental damage caused by plastic waste is causing an ecological disaster with 100 million marine animals dying each year from plastic waste alone.
As a mother of four and a keen supporter of early years education, Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney said she understood the difficulties parents and those with caring responsibilities face when trying to make the right decisions for the environment, and the bill was about making it easier for everyone who uses wet wipes.
‘I completely understand the pressures that parents are under and the difficulties that can bring when trying to cut down on plastic and make the right choices for the environment,’ Anderson said.
‘I know that parents want to do the right things and all I am saying is that we can make it easier on them and on everyone who relies on the use of wet wipes every day.
‘Everyone should bin and not flush wet wipes, but either way they contain plastic which gets in the environment and kills wildlife.’
Wet wipes are also behind 93 per cent of blockages in UK sewers and are even changing the shape of rivers as they pile up on beds and banks. The Thames Water area alone has on average 85,000 blockages a year due to fat and wet wipes. In 2018, Thames21 retrieved over 5000 wet wipes from the Thames bed during an operation on a 116m stretch of the river.
Debbie Leach, CEO of Thames 21, said, ‘Wet wipes made with plastic are contaminating our rivers and clogging our drains. They are building up in heaps on the River Thames foreshore, and the plastic in them could be devastating to wildlife in the river. We should never, ever flush as wet wipe - and our message to decision makers is that all wet wipes that contain plastic should be banned.’
A spokesperson for the Marine Conservation Society said, ‘The UK Government needs to ban plastic from wet wipes to further reduce our reliance on single use plastic and to prevent wet wipes from adding to the plastic soup in our seas.’
A spokesperson for the WWF said, 'Banning all avoidable single use plastic by 2025 would force companies to develop new products that don’t fill our oceans with waste that never disappears. We can become the generation that changes our flushaway culture and begins to restore nature instead of destroying it, but we need government policy to lead the way.'
Anderson added, ‘There are so many different types of wet wipes for sale, but the labelling is really confusing. It really isn’t easy to determine which wet wipes contain plastic and which are “fine to flush”. There will be thousands of people out there right now using wet wipes every day with no idea that they are using a single-use plastic and with no idea of the harm that it is doing to our water systems and our marine environments.’
She said that she didn’t think people realise the scale of the problem.
Just one sewage station in East London removes 30 tonnes of wet wipes every day. In 2019, 23,000 wet wipes were counted and removed from a single stretch of the Thames foreshore in just two hours. ‘That is even more terrifying when you consider that our reliance on wet wipes is growing day by day,' Anderson added.
‘It isn’t just causing environmental damage and polluting our marine environments, it is also costing water companies around £100 million per year to clear 300,000 blockages. That is money that then ends up on our water bills each month.
‘It has been years since DEFRA announced it would target plastic-containing wet wipes in its bid to eliminate all avoidable single use plastic within 25 years. Well, it’s COP26 this week and the Environment Bill is going through Parliament. This is the perfect opportunity to make good on that promise. Let’s ban plastic in wet wipes once and for all.’
Parliamentary supporters of the Bill so far include Sir Philip Dunne MP, Diane Abbott MP, Tim Farron MP, Caroline Lucas MP, Jim Shannon MP, Barry Gardiner MP, Ian Byrne MP, Lisa Cameron MP and James Gray MP.
What are the alternatives to plastic in wet wipes?
Not only is it possible to manufacture wet wipes without plastic, non-plastic alternatives are on the market already.
There are bamboo fibre wipes, plant- based wipes, organic cotton wipes and washable re-usable cloths. Holland and Barratt recently became the first shop on the high street to introduce a complete ban on the sale of all wet wipe products and plan to replace them with environmentally friendly and sustainable alternatives.
In January 2019, the UK water industry published their ‘Fine to Flush’ specification in response to an increasing number of products being labelled as flushable, but which could still potentially cause blockages in the sewer system.
However, a recent 2021 update to a survey conducted by the Marine Conservation Society last November, found that only two out of ten main UK retailers has ensured that all of their own brand flushable wet wipes meet the 'Fine to Flush' specification. Of the other eight retailers, only four have committed to doing so by the end of this year.
