NI Water flushes out blockages

NI Water is starting the New Year by taking on blockages and ‘flushing’ out the worst offenders in Northern Ireland.

The company has identified the top 20 blockage ‘hotspots’ and how much they cost.

Overall, these areas have seen over 20,000 blockages in the last two years, costing the company approximately £5m.

According to NI Water, Lisburn is one of the worst offenders, with 1,000 blockages in the last two years. Belfast was the worst offender with 7,000 blockages, next was Londonderry with 3,000, and Newtownabbey had 1,400 blockages, making Lisburn the fourth area on the hit list.

Material found causing blockages in the Lisburn area include bricks, rags, fatbergs, bicycles, car wheels, boulders, and polythene sheeting,

NI Water’s Head of Environmental Regulation, Angela Halpenny said: “NI Water fights a daily battle with blocked sewers and this time we are ‘flushing’ out the worst offenders in a bid to reduce blockages.

The main cause of blocked sewers and out of sewer flooding is the flushing of inappropriate items such as baby wipes, cotton buds and sanitary products.

Blockages are completely avoidable if everyone adopts a simple habit of binning everything other than the three P’s, pee, poo and paper.”

Visit www.niwater.com/bag-it-and-bin-it/