Are You Flushing These Items? Lubbock Warns Residents About Costly Plumbing Mistakes

Residents of Lubbock, Texas, may have experienced plumbing issues at home once or twice. This is nothing new, as cities across the state often suffer similar issues. It's basically a fact of life that you will occasionally have to contact a plumber.

Well, thanks to the City of Lubbock website, we can see some tips on reducing the amount of times we call a plumber by keeping our pipes clean year-round.

How Plumbing Works in Lubbock, TX

You can think of plumbing as you would your own arteries. There is a system of tubes transporting liquids to and fro, and some additives are harmful and can plug up these tubes.

Products like fats, oils, and grease from cooking oil or salad dressing can impede the flow in your house's plumbing. It's always best to avoid flushing these things down toilets.

What Not to Flush Down Drains in Lubbock

Certain medicines, cleaning products, paints, and pesticides should not be put down any drain or toilet. Not only can they cause potential damage to your pipes, they could also pose as a hazard to your water quality.

You should never flush wipes of any kind (baby, hygiene, or disinfecting) down a toilet. Paper towel, although similar to toilet paper, is designed to be sturdier when wet which can easily block up your plumbing.

Medicine, cleaning products and pesticides are also under the do-not-flush category. Lubbock's wastewater treatment systems, although highly effective, are not designed to remove certain products from the lakes and rivers that our plumbing ends up in.

Not only can this affect our drinking water, it can also negatively impact the ecosystems of lakes and rivers by hurting the wildlife that lives there.

Where to Dispose of Unflushables in Lubbock

Keep these locations in mind the next time you need to dump any potential hazardous waste:

• Used cooking oil can be recycled at the convenience station located on 84th street
• Unused medication can be disposed at the Lubbock Police Station drop box on Texas Ave
• Household cleaning products and pesticides can be recycled at the hazardous waste drop-off sites in Lubbock as well