As of late September 2026, my house in Riverside is sixty years old, and so is most of what runs under it. That’s why I stopped believing the word “flushable” on a package of wipes. For years everyone in my house treated them like toilet paper with better manners: wipe, flush, done.
The City of Riverside’s own sewer page doesn’t leave much room for that habit. “This system is designed for waste like pee, poop, and toilet paper only.” Wipes, it says, are the kind of thing that doesn’t break down and can easily clog pipes. Throw them in the trash.
California went further than a city web page. State law requires many premoistened wipes made on or after July 1, 2022 to carry a clear “Do Not Flush” label, and bars makers from advertising those wipes as flushable.
What the federal test found
A study in NOAA’s research repository put six kinds of wipes through sewer-like conditions. The finding is hard to argue with: “Five out of the six wipe types were greater than 93% intact after 48 hours of exposure to sewer-like conditions.” Only one type broke down to less than 14% of its starting volume in that time, about the way toilet paper did…