Brave and intrepid crews wrestled an enormous menace from the sewer beneath Eleebana, NSW, near Newcastle:  A clog of wet wipes so big that it had to be pulled out with a crane so that it dangled for several meters above the ground. 

The remainders had to be pulled from the underground pipe by hand, which is something to keep in mind when you buy these things.  Someone has to clean up after you clean up.

"The wet wipes are being advertised as basically an extra way to freshen yourself up after the bathroom," said Hunter Water Corporation's Nick Kaiser.  "The whole flushable wet wipe issue is actually a global issue."

Similar wet wipe nightmares have been reported around the world - New York, Washington, DC, San Francisco, Toronto, Sydney, London, and many other places - causing millions of dollars in equipment failures and other problems.  Wet wipes disappear when you hit the flush lever, but they aren't "readily degradable like normal toilet paper" because they're "a lot thicker and they tend to be a little more abrasive on the system", according to Jeff Biehl of the agency that runs the sewers in Oakland, California.

Mr. Kaiser says these things are not "flushable", no matter what consumers have been led to believe by marketing campaigns.  "The safest way to think about what you can put down your toilet is the 'three Ps' - pee, paper, and poo," Kaiser said.  "Everything else should stay out of the sewer."