Thames Volunteers Count 53% Drop in Flushed Wet Wipes

When 40 volunteers waded through the mud beneath Hammersmith Bridge on a Sunday morning, they were searching for something most people try to forget about the moment they flush. The citizen scientists from Thames21 were counting wet wipes, and for the first time in years, they found reason to celebrate.

The latest count revealed 733 wipes in 50 sampling squares, down from 1,584 found in the same spots just months earlier. That's a 53% drop in one of London's most stubborn pollution problems.

Dr. Felicity Rhodes, who leads the Thames21 project, explains why this matters. "Plastic here on the foreshore has the potential to make its way into the ocean and into our ocean food system," she says. By tracking and removing wipes before they break down into microplastics, volunteers are protecting waterways far beyond the Thames.

The dramatic decrease comes after two major changes. Last year, London opened the £4.6 billion Thames Tideway Tunnel, a massive infrastructure project designed to capture sewage before it reaches the river. Then diggers removed the infamous "Wet Wipe Island," a 180-ton mass of congealed wipes that had grown so large it was literally reshaping the river.

Thames Water estimates that 3.8 billion wipes get flushed into its network each year. Many contain plastic fibers designed to stay intact when wet, even those marketed as biodegradable. When they escape through storm overflows and sewage outfalls, they accumulate on riverbanks where slower water velocities trap them in the mud.

Elio Gregori, 66, has attended about 300 volunteer sessions since retiring. "When it's in the environment, you wouldn't really recognise it as a wet wipe," he says, holding up a knot of rotten-brown material. "If you look down, it opens your eyes to how much of this stuff is around."

The project involves meticulous work. Hydrographic surveyors from the Port of London Authority mark out channels based on previous counts, while volunteers lay square frames on the riverbed and drag metal sticks through layers of silt. One drag can pull up an entire clump of wipes from what looks like clean mud.

The Ripple Effect

The volunteers' patient data collection is creating waves far beyond the Thames. After nearly a decade of counts, Thames21's robust dataset caught the attention of Fleur Anderson, MP for Putney, who used it to campaign in parliament. Last December, the government announced that selling single-use wet wipes containing plastic will be illegal by May 2027.

One young refugee from Sudan who joined the count through West London Welcome summed up the mission simply: "People should have to be more careful in the environment where these things ended up."

Rhodes and her team plan to keep monitoring as the river recovers. While it's still early to know exactly how much credit goes to the cleanup versus the new tunnel, the trend is moving in the right direction for the first time in years.