this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
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Science Memes

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Is this a rope hanging under a helicopter? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 5 days ago by silverchase@sh.itjust.works to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] tyler@programming.dev 12 points 5 days ago (1 children)

So I just watched that video and I’m sorry, but that dude is just as bad as Veritasium.

Let’s cover some of the bad science:

  1. What is this 24 hour time limit for these wipes sitting in water? Clogs happen in sewage systems immediately, not 24 hours later. And it doesn’t even take that long for sewage to move through a proper system anyway, so any clogs would happen at the processing facility where they are worst, not in “twists and turns” like this guy says
  2. He literally hides what happens to the toilet paper when he flushes it, but he didn’t hide it very well. You can see in later shots (like at 8:26 in the top right) that the toilet paper literally broke up by the time it made it to the concrete. That is how it’s supposed to work. The rest failed by the time they hit the concrete.
  3. He shakes the mason jars before opening them, then claims it is to “simulate the twists and turns”. This dude is just lying out his ass. Do you know the number of turns before you get from a toilet to the street? It’s like 3. I think every toilet in my house actually only has 1 or 2, depending on which floor. Shaking these up is so badly messing with the experiment. And guess what! They’re still completely intact! But the toilet paper one he barely shakes and yet it’s completely dissolved.

And here’s where we find out what he’s looking for: 12:20. He’s seeing whether these will make it through a house plumbing system. NOT a city sewer system.

Guess what. That same guy has this video from 4 months ago: https://youtu.be/6CQ5rMRvn8I. The title: “The Lie of Flushable Wipes”. He proceeds to say no flushable wipe is safe…wait for it…except the brand he’s selling. And he directly refutes all the bits of the exact tests he ran two years ago. He even says “your sewer system doesn’t agitate the wipes, it’s like a lazy river, slowly turning”.

Think of it this way. The wipes are wet in the package they’re sold to you in. If they haven’t disintegrated in the packaging, they’re not disintegrating in the sewage system. Else they would just sell you wet toilet paper.

[–] starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Based fact-checker

[–] tyler@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thanks lol. People being wrong on the internet sucks, but people deliberately spreading misinformation that all experts agree is misinformation is infuriating to me. Just cause some fucking YouTuber said something doesn’t make it true. I’ve stopped watching so many YouTubers because of the bullshit like they make up.

On a topic similar to this though, is plastics recycling, which experts agree that plastics manufacturing hid how difficult it was to recycle for years. But experts say it’s infeasible, while there are companies like Trash Panda disc golf recycling things into disc golf discs hundreds of times. So really the moral is, think critically.

[–] starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah usually it's a question of does this pass the smell test, "every expert and sanitation workers who actually see it firsthand are saying one thing, but we tested it and they're all wrong!" is like hmmm....

I would be wary of things that purport to be plastics recycling, as the two main issues are 1. It's still cheaper to make new things rather than recycle 2. The recycled plastic is generally less versatile, which is why you'll see it in things like Frisbees and knick-knacks.

Not to say it isn't something we should be doing when it's feasible, but it's sort of like going from ICE cars to electric cars, where we're putting a band-aid on the problem instead of switching to something that isn't as destructive.

[–] tyler@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago

Yeah usually it's a question of does this pass the smell test, "every expert and sanitation workers who actually see it firsthand are saying one thing, but we tested it and they're all wrong!" is like hmmm....

Exactly

I would be wary of things that purport to be plastics recycling, as the two main issues are 1. It's still cheaper to make new things rather than recycle 2. The recycled plastic is generally less versatile, which is why you'll see it in things like Frisbees and knick-knacks.

It completely depends on the product. For example aluminum is vastly easier to recycle than to make new. For plastics it depends on the plastic, but there is always a way. For example, trash panda managed to recycle Crocs, which are an expanded foam plastic. It was not recyclable on its own, it wouldn’t melt down into an injection moldeable plastic, but they managed to use it as an aggregate, kinda like concrete. I don’t agree that it’s less versatile. It’s just more work that companies don’t want to do so they say it’s not possible.

Not to say it isn't something we should be doing when it's feasible, but it's sort of like going from ICE cars to electric cars, where we're putting a band-aid on the problem instead of switching to something that isn't as destructive.

The thing is, plastic isn’t going anywhere. It’s embedded into every part of our lives, both bad uses and good uses. We need to find a way to stop making more of it. It’s wild that we bury so much trash instead of trying to recover it.