3 Tips to Help Keep Your Sewer Line Cleared

A sewer back up can be one of the costliest, messiest and most stressful problems you will ever have to deal with. It is possible that raw sewage can back up into your toilet, sink and bathtub, eventually overflowing into key areas of your house. It’s admittedly a disgusting topic to talk about, but it does happen, and it is important to know how to prevent it. So, here are a few tips on how to clear a mainline blockage:

1. Clear Roots

These are the most common culprits behind sewer backups. Roots belonging to trees and shrubs seek moisture underground and can, therefore, make their way into sewer lines through cracks in the pipe. Typically, they start small but grow and eventually obstruct the line, allowing waste to build up and back up. Here are some tips on using salt to get rid of such tree roots.

  • Obtain 4 pounds of rock salt and flush it down the toilet in the evening before the family goes to bed. That will give the saltwater at least 8 hours in the sewer line. For that duration, do not use any drains in the house to avoid diluting the saltwater.
  • After 8 hours, flush the toilet again and resume use of the drains in the house.
  • Follow this practice about once or twice a month. Any tree roots in the sewer line will die from the excess of sodium, and the lines will soon be clear.

2. Clear Paper Products

These include such products as paper towels, sanitary towels and diapers that are not intended for flushing. These products aren’t like toilet paper in that they do not disintegrate easily. They can, therefore, block the sewer line and cause a backup. To prevent this from happening, they should not be flushed down the toilet but should instead be thrown in the garbage.

Sanitary towels and diapers should never be flushed down the toilet as they tend to clog the sewer line the fastest. This also includes tampons. All of these should be disposed of in a specialized garbage bin placed next to the toilet, such as the ones in public restrooms.

3. Avoid Putting Grease in Drains

Grease is another culprit that has a way of causing backups. You should avoid, as much as possible, pouring grease down a drain. This also applies to cooking oil as it often has the same effect. Some people believe that using hot water to wash grease down the drain helps. That is not true. The grease will go down the drain more easily, but it will eventually cool off further down the drain and solidify. When it does that, it will clog the drain and cause a backup.  The line will have a harder time letting water through and get clogged.

The best solution is to pour the grease into a container that is resistant to heat and let it cool off. You can then dispose of it in the garbage.

Unending Benefits of Recycling Cooking Oil

Disposal of cooking oil is not an easy task. If you try to drain it, it will block your sink drains and cause you immense plumbing problems. Throwing it away is also not a good idea because it causes damage to the environment. Cooking oil cannot go to your usual recycle trash bin like other trash because the processes of recycling it are different. However, there are better ways of recycling cooking oil without harming the environment. You can have it recycled. If you are not able to do it by yourself, there are companies that offer cooking oil recycling services.

Benefits of recycling cooking oil

Recycling companies, like MBP Solutions, turn cooking oil into other products like stock feed, cosmetics and biofuel.  They also filter the oil for reuse. If you are not in any position to recycle your cooking oil, do not drain it down the sink or throw it in your waste bin. Wrap your cooking oil in a tight jar, make sure there are no spills and call the right people to come and collect it. MBP Solutions recycles both commercial and residential cooking oils.

Recycling cooking oil comes with several benefits. The technology used to recycle the oil is advanced and the final products help in both businesses and homes.

Below are some of the major benefits of recycling of cooking oil:

Renewable energy

Recycling cooking oil turns it into renewable energy used in many manufacturing firms for processing their products. One of the most notable fuels is biodiesel, which is from used oils, grease, animal fats and vegetable oils among others. Vehicles that use diesel can use this fuel effectively and businesses that use diesel-powered machines can use the fuel without any fear of harmful emissions.

Cleaner environment

We all need a clean environment and it is not what we always get. Fuels are some of the major contributor to health hazards because of emissions. Petro-diesel is very toxic as compared to biodiesel. Biodiesel is eco-friendly and does not damage a vehicle’s engine. Petro-diesel on the other hand, produces chemical compounds like sulphur that are acidic. This acid can spoil the engine. Biodiesel production is green in nature and keeps everything safe.

Saves costs

Recycling cooking oil saves costs in many ways. At home, you can reduce your disposal costs by calling a recycling company to come for your waste oil. If you try to dispose of the oil by yourself, you may end up spending more on extra waste bins, transportation and special disposal procedures.

Companies that use recycled oil have a chance of preventing their equipment from spoiling faster than they did before the recycled oil. Maintenance costs go down and recycled oil like biodiesel is much cheaper as compared to the other kinds of imported fuels.

Creates jobs

Disposing of waste materials and recycling them is one way of creating jobs for the masses. Instead of using that money to import petro-diesel, the government uses the money to employ more people to recycle oil into more beneficial biodiesel.

Make money out of it

You can make an extra buck out of disposing your used oil. Instead of throwing your oil away, look for companies that recycle the oil and pay you for it. This will also save you on transport costs to go and dispose of your oil, because the recycling companies come to pick it up.

Wrapping it up

The most important factor about recycling is that we are working towards one goal. That goal is to maintain a greener, healthier and cleaner environment. That is our goal and recycling cooking oil is one way of doing that.