The Think Before You Flush Campaign
Several years ago, Clean Coasts volunteer groups highlighted that they were finding sewage related litter around the coast during clean-ups.
Irish Water were also reporting blockages in the waste water infrastructure caused by the same items.
At the time, there was no campaign here in Ireland addressing this issue.
As a result, Clean Coasts spoke with their international partners for advice and joined up with Irish Water to educate the public on this issue.
Think Before You Flush is a public awareness campaign highlighting the problems caused by flushing sanitary products and other items down the toilet. Consequences include blockages in our household plumbing, our wastewater network and littering our marine environment.
The campaign is operated by An Taisce’s Clean Coasts programme in partnership with Irish Water and has been running since 2015. Each year, the campaign runs regionally in cities, towns and villages across Ireland.
The campaign works with the local community, businesses and schools to promote changes in flushing behaviour through workshops, events and clean ups.
The goal of the campaign is to encourage people to always #ThinkB4UFlush
Clean Coasts is a charity programme, run through the Environmental Education Unit of An Taisce, which engages communities in the protection of Ireland’s beaches, seas and marine life. Clean Coasts works with communities to help protect and care for Ireland’s waterways, coastline, seas, ocean and marine life. Clean Coasts thrives to create tangible and immediate improvements to Ireland’s coastal environment, involving thousands of volunteers removing large quantities of marine litter from our coastline each year.
Irish Water is Ireland’s national water utility and is responsible for providing and developing water and wastewater services throughout Ireland. From coast to coast, Irish Water’s job is to ensure they deliver the highest quality drinking water to taps in Ireland every day and ensure that wastewater is properly treated and safely returned to the environment.