Toilet Paper and Mexican Plumbing

From the Series: "Home Construction & Maintenance in Mexico"

By J. Brad Grieve, P.Eng. MBA © 2008
His Web Site

In village businesses, it is common to see a sign in the bathroom asking you not to throw tissue paper down the toilet.

The debate among friends in high school was whether the toilet paper should be scrunched or folded when used. But here in Mexico, the debate includes whether or not the toilet paper should be discarded into the toilet at all. Yes, this is a dirty topic. However it is a common to question about whether or not one can throw the toilet paper into the toilet. The answer is a definite maybe.

 

Getting back to the question at hand (so to speak), to answer we must understand the system being used to treat the waste products. And to be clear, when I say, "waste" or "black water," I am referring to everything that you flush down your toilet. If you have a municipal sewer system, yes you can flush the paper down the toilet since the municipal system can handle the paper from toilets. And if you have a private septic tank on your property, the same answer can be true since the bacteria in the septic tank can help break down the cellulose in the paper. Nevertheless, an excessive amount of toilet paper can be a problem by overloading the tank and slowing down the bacterial activity in the septic tank. Hopefully the septic tank is healthy and large enough to handle the volume of material that needs to be treated. Now we should know that only the villages and towns of the Lake Chapala (i.e. Chapala, Jocotepec, Ajijic, San Antonio Tlayacapan, San Juan Cosala, etc) have municipal wastewater treatment plants to handle the "black water" from the toilets in their respective communities. However in village businesses, it is common to see a sign in the bathroom asking you not to throw tissue paper down the toilet. The problem is...

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J. Brad Grieve is a professional civil engineer who has lived and worked in the Lake Chapala area since 1994. He is the owner of Ajijic Home Inspections and you can be reach him by phone: (376) 766-2836 or e-mail.

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