this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
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Science Memes

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Is this a rope hanging under a helicopter? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 days ago by silverchase@sh.itjust.works to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] turdas@suppo.fi 10 points 2 days ago (2 children)

To be fair some wet wipes are flushable (as in they disintegrate when flushed), the problem is that not all of them are and there's no standard they have to adhere to, so even the ones that shouldn't be flushed are allowed to advertise themselves as flushable.

[–] tyler@programming.dev 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No that’s literally the experiment that Derek did. He “showed” that the wet wipes “disintegrated”. What they actually did was break apart under a large weight he put on top of them. That’s not what happens in a sewage system. Along with that, unless they completely dissolve they will still cause issues as the broken up strands.

Unless you are a civil engineer you should not be deciding what goes in a sewer. And no one making wet wipes are civil engineers.

[–] turdas@suppo.fi 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I haven't seen his experiment and don't really care what he did. Other independent experiments have shown that some wet wipes do disintegrate. The reason authorities recommend against their use is what I said: there is no standard for what constitutes "flushable" and the industry is rife with false advertising.

Here's some plumbing YouTube guy testing a bunch of them and finding some that do disintegrate while others do not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVijZZ2yAtc

Of course the best option is a bidet, but this is as of yet unknown technology to most Americans.

[–] tyler@programming.dev 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So I just watched that video and I’m sorry, but that dude is just as bad as Veritasium.

Let’s cover some of the bad science:

  1. What is this 24 hour time limit for these wipes sitting in water? Clogs happen in sewage systems immediately, not 24 hours later. And it doesn’t even take that long for sewage to move through a proper system anyway, so any clogs would happen at the processing facility where they are worst, not in “twists and turns” like this guy says
  2. He literally hides what happens to the toilet paper when he flushes it, but he didn’t hide it very well. You can see in later shots (like at 8:26 in the top right) that the toilet paper literally broke up by the time it made it to the concrete. That is how it’s supposed to work. The rest failed by the time they hit the concrete.
  3. He shakes the mason jars before opening them, then claims it is to “simulate the twists and turns”. This dude is just lying out his ass. Do you know the number of turns before you get from a toilet to the street? It’s like 3. I think every toilet in my house actually only has 1 or 2, depending on which floor. Shaking these up is so badly messing with the experiment. And guess what! They’re still completely intact! But the toilet paper one he barely shakes and yet it’s completely dissolved.

And here’s where we find out what he’s looking for: 12:20. He’s seeing whether these will make it through a house plumbing system. NOT a city sewer system.

Guess what. That same guy has this video from 4 months ago: https://youtu.be/6CQ5rMRvn8I. The title: “The Lie of Flushable Wipes”. He proceeds to say no flushable wipe is safe…wait for it…except the brand he’s selling. And he directly refutes all the bits of the exact tests he ran two years ago. He even says “your sewer system doesn’t agitate the wipes, it’s like a lazy river, slowly turning”.

Think of it this way. The wipes are wet in the package they’re sold to you in. If they haven’t disintegrated in the packaging, they’re not disintegrating in the sewage system. Else they would just sell you wet toilet paper.

[–] starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Based fact-checker

[–] tyler@programming.dev 1 points 2 hours ago

Thanks lol. People being wrong on the internet sucks, but people deliberately spreading misinformation that all experts agree is misinformation is infuriating to me. Just cause some fucking YouTuber said something doesn’t make it true. I’ve stopped watching so many YouTubers because of the bullshit like they make up.

On a topic similar to this though, is plastics recycling, which experts agree that plastics manufacturing hid how difficult it was to recycle for years. But experts say it’s infeasible, while there are companies like Trash Panda disc golf recycling things into disc golf discs hundreds of times. So really the moral is, think critically.

[–] blackbrook@mander.xyz 3 points 2 days ago

There's no standard they have to adhere to, but there are certifications you can look for that guarantee they break up properly.