#sewer engineering

OK SO LIKE THEY FLUSH AS IN THEY FLUSH DOWN THE TOILET RIGHT? BUT YOU CAN LABEL GOLFBALLS AS FLUSHABLE TOO AND IT'S NOT A GOOD IDEA TO PUT DOWN THE SEWER STILL

But yeah, when you flush things that can't break down easily into the sewer system, you cause one of two issues:

The first is the creation of a fatberg. A fatberg is a conglomeration of fibrous materials and organic matter that form a plug in the sewer line. Fatbergs form PRIMARILY because of flushable, not-breaking-down fabrics such as "flushable" wipes, since organic material is kinda the main thing that sewers transport. Flushable wipes don't actually break down in a way that matters.

The second is the destruction of pumps. Fibrous materials can get inside lift station and wastewater treatment plant pumps and clog them up. MOST pumps are non-clog and resist this, but if you keep allowing these fibrous materials to build up, they can become a problem and clog the pump anyways. Plus if they get to be TOO long or large of a fibrous mass, then it's basically throwing a rope into a pump, which immediately clogs it. Which if a fatberg dislodges, can possibly do.

Toilet paper is flushable because it disintegrates when it gets wet and thus doesn't clog the pipes.

Wetwipes are already wet and still they hold their shape, thus not disintegrating when travelling the pipes and causing clogs.

What exactly justifies the term "flushable" when they are exactly as flushable as the non-flushable wetwipes?

Because flushable isn't a protected term like organic, so they can call it whatever they want so long as it's not false advertising.

(different recipes want different amounts of oil and you can count and learn what works if you use the same type)

Then you just throw out those paper towels and at the end you can pour the hot oil on the paper towels then transfer to trash.

See, now this is a great way to deal with the oil! TBF, it's not a massive harm to pour some oil into the drains on an infrequent basis, but every bit you remove from the system helps.

Example, the last time I toured the local wastewater treatment plant, the operators were dealing with a FOG issues (fats, oils, and greases). Lots of brown foam was forming atop their secondary clarification, since there was so much FOG that the primary biological treatment couldn't get rid of it. This required them to pay for FOG removal on a weekly basis, which costed more.

Supai Village Sewage Lagoon, Grand Canyon, AZ, USA