Why you should avoid buying wet wipes

https://www.treehugger.com/health/why-you-should-avoid-buying-wet-wipes.html?fbclid=IwAR0P1eUJyp23ma56xfuPmFVF33apRVAqtid7qDM674wdD4WdaxRSHn7mnKY

Katherine Martinko feistyredhair
June 16, 2015

Wet wipes have been labeled “the biggest villain of 2015” by The Guardian. These disposable wipes, which are essentially an instant soapy washcloth that doesn’t require rinsing, promises to disinfect, and gets tossed after use, have become extremely popular – too popular, in fact.

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Just because wet wipes are technically ‘disposable’ doesn’t mean they magically disintegrate; instead, they are simply shuffled off somewhere else, out of sight, where they proceed to wreak environmental havoc.

Most contain plastic fibers that are not biodegradable. When the wipes make their way into the ocean, they get ingested by sea creatures, such as turtles, who mistake them for jellyfish and eventually die. (The same thing happens with plastic bags.)

“When marine wildlife eats that plastic, which they quite often do, it just stays in the stomach of the animal and quite often they just die of starvation,” says Charlotte Coombs of the Marine Conservation Society (MCS).

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Many users erroneously choose to flush wipes down the toilet, clogging and causing it to overflow. The Guardian reports that New York City has spent $18 million on “wipe-related equipment problems” in the past five years, and residents of Kent, a county in the UK, were dumping an estimated 2,000 tons of wet wipes into sewers.

When wipes clog city sewers, overflow occurs, or, at the very least, a serious blockage made from accumulating fat. “In 2013 a lump of congealed fat the size of a bus was found in sewers beneath London.” Yuck. So much for convenience.

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Several years ago, Reuters reported that wipes cause rashes in uncomfortable places. A Mayo Clinic report cited the experience of one man, a postman, who “had a rash around his anus so painful that he couldn’t walk for months… It wasn’t until he stopped using Kimberly-Clark’s Cottonelle moist wipes, some of which contain MCI [methylchloroisothiazolinone, a chemical of concern], that the problem cleared up.”

Baby wipes contain preservatives and fragrances that should not come into contact with human skin, particularly that of infants and small children. (See the Environmental Working Group's report on the hidden hazards of antibacterial wipes.)

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