Toys in the attic? No, in the toilet
You say toilet. I say toilette.
To some children, it's a toy-let.
In this season of spring cleaning, hundreds of toys travel down the toilet tubes daily nationwide. Turns out, youngsters are the usual culprits.
"Parents are not aware of it until it plugs the toilet," said Bob Kappler, a lab technician with the Roselle Public Works Department.
While some toys may not clog the toilet, they can get stuck in lift station pumps -- and public works crews must fish them out.
A green ogre named Shrek recently made his way through the sewer system in Roselle. Someone in Naperville or Warrenville sent a few Fisher-Price toys on a permanent vacation to the Spring Brook Water Reclamation Center in Naperville.
Toddlers and preschoolers, most likely fascinated with the toilet flushing mechanism, tend to dispose of old toys after the holidays.
Anything from toy soldiers to plastic rubber ducks and teddy bears have been known to travel down the tubes, through the public sewer system and into local sewer treatment plants.
"You name it, we get it," said Brian Quick, wastewater field supervisor at the Naperville treatment plant that also handles waste from Warrenville. "We got some funny stuff. We have Ernie from Sesame Street. He's got some sort of floatation device. It must have helped him get here."
David Today, operations supervisor in Naperville, said not all toys end up at the treatment plants. Because of sophisticated water treatment technology, most toys are caught by screens or filters and then make their way into a Dumpster, ending up in a landfill.
Still, flushing toys down a toilet costs money to taxpayers.
"It really does have an impact," Kappler said. "If you add up all the treatment plants in the United States and the debris that they have to remove from the water, that sounds like a lot of extra money to me. Anything that we have to take out costs tax dollars."
To create public awareness about the problem, Roselle has kept dozens of toys that have been flushed down the toilet in the past few decades. The collection is on display at the Roselle Public Library.
In Naperville, public works employees keep more than 25 toys on shelves at the wastewater treatment facility. When school or youth groups take tours, the toys often end up the star attraction.
"There really is a large story behind it and most people don't have a chance to see it," said Roselle Trustee Barbara Hochstadt, who suggested bringing the toys to the library for public viewing. "I think the toys will start a conversation."