With the rapid improvement of people’s living standards and the continuous progress of technology, people’s living habits are constantly changing, and wet wipes are gradually becoming an essential cleaning and hygiene product in people’s lives. Especially since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia, the amount of clean, hygienic, disinfectant type wipes is rapidly increasing. With the increasing amount of disposable sanitary products, while bringing people a healthy and convenient life, they also slowly bring some environmental problems, they can’t pass through the toilet and sewage treatment facilities as smoothly as dry toilet paper, and the annual consumption of wet wipes in various countries is tens of thousands of tons, which will inevitably bring a great burden to waste disposal and the environment.
Most people do not know how to deal with wet wipes waste, just throw the wet wipes into the garbage can, waiting for the garbage removal workers to transport to the landfill, over time, the waste generated by the wet wipes will also cause a certain environmental pressure on the earth, how do we solve this problem? The emergence of flushable wipes has been greatly praised by wipes users.
Do you know what a flushable wipe is?
Flushable wipes are a new wipe on the market, based on green sanitary materials for wipes, disposable products prepared by non-woven method, which can be completely dispersed in water and biodegradable, it is compatible with existing sewage conveyance, treatment, reuse and settlement systems, and can be disposed of more conveniently as toilet paper waste. Flushability includes flush-out, dispersibility and biodegradability, etc. Flush-out means that the product passes through the entire wastewater treatment facility without clogging or damaging the facility; dispersibility means that the product can achieve a certain degree of dispersion in water; biodegradability means that the product can be completely degraded after flushing out over a period of time and does not threaten the ecological environment.
Basic performance requirements for flushable wipes.
Flushability, that is, after the use of the product waste thrown into the toilet, under the action of water flow is easy to disperse, easy to pass through the drainage pipe, while the original form of waste after the drainage pipe system is dispersed into an unrecognizable form and can not accumulate, into the septic tank with degradable properties, in the whole process, to keep the flush toilet and drainage pipe system smooth, compatible with the existing system of sewage transport, treatment, reuse and disposal, etc. . The flushability and the wet strength of the product are contradictory. It is necessary to ensure that the product has the proper wet strength and does not affect the use, but also requires that the product can be flushed in the toilet and pipeline, so a balance can only be found between the two for development, and the product must also have good biodegradability.
Flushable nonwoven materials are mainly used in wet toilet paper, and some are also used in baby wipes and nursing wipes. At present, the international standards for flushable nonwoven products are mainly the “Guidelines for Evaluating the Flushability of Disposable Nonwoven Products” of the American Nonwovens Association (INDA) and the European Nonwovens Association (EDANA).
Some people say that flushable wipes are an IQ tax, but flushable wipes are indeed an innovation of traditional wipes, which are relatively more ecological and environmental friendly. With social progress and the concept of ecological and environmental protection becoming more and more popular, the application of flushable wipes will become more and more extensive, with very good market application prospects, mainly in the following 3 aspects.
1.The use of the product performance is more excellent
First of all, flushable dispersible wet wipes have similar comfort to traditional wet wipes and better wet strength than traditional toilet paper, which does not affect the use in the wet state. Traditional toilet paper is generally made of pure wood pulp fiber, there is basically no physical entanglement between the fibers, and its strength mainly depends on the hydrogen bond between the fiber molecules, after encountering water, the hydrogen bond between the fibers is broken, and the strength of toilet paper drops sharply, so it cannot be used in the wet state. Flushable wet wipes for the wet state wipe, its cleaning effect, comfort, safety and hygiene is far better than paper towels, especially for hemorrhoid patients, infants and children, hospital patients and other wipe use. From the perspective of the safer and more hygienic, simple and convenient lifestyle that people are pursuing, disposable flushable wipes have a good application prospect.
2.Have good environmental friendliness
While disposable products bring great convenience to people’s lives, they also bring great pressure to waste disposal and the environment. The human living environment is constantly being affected and destroyed, prompting people to become more aware of environmental protection, and the government has also introduced environmental protection policies such as waste separation and plastic restriction orders. The massive use of traditional wet wipes has increased the burden of waste disposal, and the large number of fibers with non-degradable components has further increased the risk of environmental pollution. Flushable wipes can be treated as human excrement, and finally degraded to form the nutrients needed by plants, forming a recyclable ecological chain. From the perspective of environmental protection, flushable wipes are more environmentally friendly, more favored by consumers and various environmental policies, and more in line with the future development concept of green environmental protection.
3.The launch of relevant standards to provide the right guidance
The production of flushable wipes has also been controversial in various countries, with reports of flushable wipes clogging city sewers, polluting the environment, making cleaning more difficult and expensive, but INDA believes that it is mainly caused by ordinary baby wipes or other non-flushable wipes, and that the city’s sewage problem has nothing to do with flushable wipes, so INDA and EDANA have refined the guidelines to prevent some non-flushable wipes from being flushed down the toilet. As standards research continues to improve, product technology and performance continue to be optimized, and producers and consumers become more aware of flushable wipes, it is believed that more people will choose flushable wipes.
In Western Europe, seven countries/regions – the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Luby and Scandinavia – account for approximately 85% of the flushable dispersible market; in Eastern Europe, Russia, Poland and Turkey account for approximately 80% of the flushable dispersible wipes market; in North America, the United States and Canada account for nearly 95% of the region’s wipes market; in Asia, China, India and Japan account for approximately 85% of the regional market for flushable wipes；and the rest of the world, mainly in the Middle East and African countries.
Today, flushable wipes are more often used in wet toilet wipes, like the toilet rolls we usually use are very rough and easy to hurt farts, while wet toilet paper is very mild and can protect our skin well, effectively antibacterial and more hygienic.
In the next few years, flushable wipes will occupy the main market, and some non-flushable non-woven fabrics will continue to be phased out. By 2023, only 1.9% of all raw materials used in flushable wipes will be non-biodegradable.
Our website has many dispersible wipes categories, you can browse the website to choose the wipes you want, we look forward to working with you!
Tips——How to choose wet toilet wipes
- whether it can be flushed away, is the most significant difference between it and ordinary wet wipes. After use can be flushed directly from the toilet inside, wet wipes can be decomposed in the sewer, only the base cloth of wet toilet paper composed of virgin wood pulp, to have the ability to decompose in the sewer, no need to consider how to deal with after use, convenient and worry-free.
- Whether it is mild and safe is where it is better than ordinary paper towels. A good wet toilet paper is weak acid, can pass the mucous membrane irritation test and other rigorous examination, suitable for sensitive parts of the private parts of the people who need care.
- whether there is a strong ability to remove bacteria, is it beyond the strength of similar paper products. The outstanding feature of wet toilet paper is not wet, but contains a strong ability to remove bacteria, including E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Candida albicans, etc.Through the physical erasing method, it achieves the effect of protecting PP and removing bacteria and antibacterial, high quality wet toilet paper should be able to effectively erase 99.9% of the bacteria, the most important thing is that the bacteria removal mechanism of high quality wet toilet paper should be physical bacteria removal, that is, the bacteria is taken away in the paper after wiping, rather than through the method of chemical sterilization, therefore, a high quality wet toilet paper products can never add containing the private parts containing stimulating Bactericidal agent.
