How to keep drains clog-free this Thanksgiving weekend
The City of Regina is sending out reminders for residents to help keep their drains clog-free over the Thanksgiving weekend.
The city said the accumulation of fats, oils, grease and food can harden and eventually lead to a blockage in the piping system, which could impact residents.
“We try to put out the messaging around Thanksgiving because people are generally having turkey at Thanksgiving and then there’s the leftover gravy. That should be scraped, once it’s cooled, into a container and put into the garbage,” Helene Henning-Hill, manager of sewer and drainage operations with the city, said. “Fats, oils and grease can actually set up in our piping system and then it becomes a plug.”
She said high fat foods including bacon grease, mayonnaise, coffee cream and gravy, should never be poured down a drain.
In addition, the city said flushing the wrong things down the toilet can also lead to sewage backups.
“Things start to get added into that grease when you start to flush things that don’t belong in the toilet,” she said, adding only human waste and toilet paper should be flushed. “Flushing Q-tips, hair, sanitary products, condoms and things of that nature start to cling to the grease and then we’ve got a real problem happening.”
She said all of these steps will help keep blockages away.
“And preventing those big fatbergs. We don’t want to see those because obviously we don’t want to have a sewage backup,” she said.
A fatberg is a very large mass of solid waste in a sewage system. The city of Moose Jaw recently battled its own fatberg that could have affected about half the population had it not been cleared.
“We received some calls from some local businesses in the area that were seeing some backup happening in their buildings so at that point we deployed crews to investigate,” Darrin Stephanson, the director of public works and utilities with the city of Moose Jaw, said. “We determined we had a blockage in one of our main sanitary trunks that is responsible for moving a lot of the sewage for the middle portion of the city.”
Crews were able to break the fatberg up and remove it from the line before it impacted many residents.
Stephanson said they found what would typically be inside sanitary sewers.
“You get that oil and grease build up, fat build up that comes from residential users or business users. It starts to collect and harden in the system and then other items start to collect on it from there,” he explained.
He said a blockage of this size is rare.
“These type of blockages are fairly common in your smaller domestic lines of the six and eight inch variety. We don’t typically see it in our 24 inch or larger trunks,” he said. “It’s certainly a more rare event for us.”
He said residents should not flush wet wipes, feminine hygiene products or cooking products down their drains, toilets or showers in order to prevent buildups like this in the future.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Canadian gov't proposes new foreign influence registry as part of wide-spanning new bill
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government is proposing a suite of new measures and law changes aimed at countering foreign interference in Canada, amid extensive scrutiny over past meddling attempts and an ever-evolving threat landscape.
Boeing Starliner capsule's first crewed test flight postponed
The long-awaited first crewed test flight of Boeing's new Starliner space capsule was called off for at least 24 hours over a technical issue that launch teams were unable to resolve in time for the planned Monday night lift-off.
Teacher charged in historical sexual assault of Calgary teenage girl
Calgary police have charged a teacher with the alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl more than 20 years ago.
Winnipeg man admits to killing four women, argues he's not criminally responsible
Defence lawyers of Jeremy Skibicki have admitted in court the accused killed four Indigenous women, but argues he is not criminally responsible for the deaths by way of mental disorder – this latest development has triggered a judge-alone trial rather than a jury trial.
Man banned from owning animals after fatal Calgary dog attack
The owner of three Calgary dogs that got loose and mauled a woman to death in 2022 has been ordered to pay a $15,000 fine within one year and banned from owning any animal for 15 years.
East-end Ottawa family dealing with massive rat infestation
Residents in Ottawa’s Elmridge Gardens complex are dealing with a rat infestation that just won’t go away. Now, after doing everything they can to try to fix the issue, they are pleading with the city to step in and help.
Mediterranean staple may lower your risk of death from dementia, study finds
A daily spoonful of olive oil could lower your risk of dying from dementia, according to a new study by Harvard scientists.
An El Nino-less summer is coming. Here's what that could mean for Canada
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Newfoundland and Labrador latest province to tighten rules on Airbnbs
Newfoundland and Labrador is the latest jurisdiction to bring in stricter rules for short-term rentals, with a coming set of regulations that will force operators to register with the provincial government.