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Gross! Divers swim through 30 yards of raw sewage to unclog 'flushable wipes'

The City of Charleston sent divers into their sewer system Tuesday after noticing a clog at one of their treatment plants. The culprit: wet wipes

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Charleston Water Services suffered a massive pump clog affecting the entire city Tuesday.

The culprit? So-called flushable wipes.

“You know wipes clog pipes, right?” Charleston Water tweeted.

To fix the clog, the city says divers had to go through 80-90 feet of raw sewage. They then searched with the hands in complete darkness until they found the problem.

They surfaced with a large mass of flushable wipes that in total measured 36 feet wide and 12 feet long. Divers had to break it apart into smaller pieces to get it to the surface.

Divers also found a baseball and a big piece of metal.

City water officials say they really want people to stop using flushable wipes products altogether. If you insist on using them, toss them in the trash, not the toilet.

"Don't flush stuff like this," Charlotte Water officials tweeted. "You should only flush #1, #2, and toilet paper."

So what happened with all the wipes they pulled out of the pipes?

"They are dewatered and trucked to a landfill, along with tons of other non-flushable items and other solids removed during the normal treatment process," said water officials.

And in case you're wondering, the divers get multiple showers after coming out of the sewage tanks, including one with straight bleach before even taking the dive suit off. They also apparently don't mind their job, with one diver saying, "It's actually not bad at all."

Give that guy a raise.

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