(TOILET FLUSHES) JACK: Noooooooooo!
Jack, what's wrong?
My favourite wig just got flushed down the toilet by accident.
Aw, no. You might have blocked the pipes.
Gee, thanks for the sympathy! You know it was one of a kind.
Oh, well, you could always try going
to the wastewater treatment works, I guess.
The wastewater what-what?
You know, the wastewater treatment works -
the place where all the stuff that you do in the toilet goes.
Huh! I think you might be right.
Yeah, I'll go see if they've got it. Thanks, kind stranger!
Jack, it's me, Liv. We work together.
Oh, wait! Here's your wig! It fell behind the toilet.
Oh, he's gone.
(TOILET FLUSHES)
Oh, well, this stinks.
But you get used to it.
I'm not talking about the smell,
although, yeah, it does smell pretty bad here.
I flushed my favourite wig down the toilet.
Your wig? Yeah!
You shouldn't be flushing a wig down the toilet.
I know that! It was an accident.
Do you think it might be here somewhere?
Could be. Shall we have a look?
Alright. This way?
If you haven't worked it out yet,
the Bolivar Wastewater Treatment Works
is one of the places the stuff we flush down the toilet ends up.
So, here at Bolivar, we have around 150 million litres
of wastewater come in to the treatment plant every day.
It first goes through a screening process
where we remove some gross solids.
Um, we then have a bit of a settling phase.
The wastewater then comes, um, into some tanks,
which are just next to me here, called clarifiers.
And we separate out the water and the solids,
um, and then they go in two separate directions.
The water part goes out to be, um, disinfected
through some large ponds,
and then we can largely use it for beneficial reuse.
And some of it does get released into the environment as well.
Thanks to some very clever engineering,
a lot of our waste doesn't go to waste,
but Lisa says a lot of things are ending up here
that really shouldn't.
Golf balls to dog toys to false teeth to rubber chickens
to all sorts of things.
That's a problem,
and not just for the people who lose their teeth or wigs,
but also for the workers who have to remove them
to keep things working properly.
And while most of this stuff is clearly not designed
to go down the loo,
there are other, less obvious unflushable things
causing big problems in our sewerage systems.
(TOILET FLUSHES)
Have you ever heard of a fatberg?
Um, yeah, one of them destroyed the Titanic.
No, that was an iceberg. Oh.
A fatberg is a really gross thing,
and they're normally made up of fats and oils,
with wet wipes and paper towel.
Gross!
Gross indeed, and experts say part of the problem is products
that are allowed to advertise themselves as flushable
when, actually, they're not.
We know that there are items that physically can be flushed away,
um, but they do create problems.
So, we're really excited that some work is being done
by Standards Australia to develop some new standards
around what should not be flushed down the toilet.
If they are adopted, the new standards will mean
products that are actually flushable
can carry a logo to let customers know.
No logo means no loo.
In the meantime, Lisa says the only things
that should be flushed are the three Ps.
Say them with me, now - poo, pee and paper.
Toilet paper, that is.
As for me, I've learned my lesson.
I'll never wear a wig in the toilet again,
unless it's made out of toilet paper,
'cause if that falls in, hey, no problem.