Scottish Water has begun a nationwide campaign to encourage customers to help prevent sewer blockages, flooding and pollution by properly disposing of wet wipes.
The Nature Calls campaign calls on the Scottish and UK governments to ban wet wipes that contain plastic.
Together with the Marine Conservation Society, Keep Scotland Beautiful and Zero Waste Scotland, the water company asked the public to bin their wipes instead of flushing them.
Douglas Millican, Scottish Water chief executive, said: “Our message to our customers is clear: please bin the wipes and help us protect the environment.
“And to policymakers we say now is the time to ban all wipes containing plastic and rid our sewers, rivers and beaches of this needless problem,” he said.
Last year, more than 10,000 tonnes of material from wipes and other non-flushables were removed from wastewater plants in Scotland and thousands of tonnes ended up blocking sewers, causing flooding, or being flushed into rivers during storms and heavy rain.
Research by the Marine Conservation Society shows that wipes are now the most common cause of beach pollution.
Millican explained the company clears around 36,000 blockages each year, which costs £7 million annually. Of those, around 80% include wet wipes that according to the Marine Conservation Society are the most common cause of beach pollution.
Environment minister Mairi McAllan said: “We support the calls to ban wet wipes containing plastic and encourage the UK Government and other administrations to work with us to bring forward bans on unnecessary and environmentally harmful products.”
In England a private members bill was introduced by Labour’s Fleur Anderson to ban wipes that contain plastic amidst support that the bill should cover other single-use plastics also.
Recent statistics from Thames Water showed low awareness among the public about the harm caused by improperly disposing of wipes and other items such as sanitary items down the loo.
An estimated 11 billion wipes are used each year in the UK.
Keep Scotland Beautiful chief executive Barry Fisher said: “We want doing the right thing for our environment to be easy and possible for everyone – including manufacturers finding affordable alternatives to plastic free wipes. This will make sure that industry contributes to the future without wipes that clog up our waterways and oceans, harming wildlife and permanently changing our environment.
“Scotland is facing a climate and litter emergency, so action to find affordable solutions to plastic free wipes is needed to protect the future of our country. This campaign will help industry and individuals to understand that their actions can and do make a difference.”