The disposal of unflushable products via the toilet is an enduring problem and increasing contributor to environmental and infrastructural challenges such as fatbergs, water quality and plastic pollution. Rising scientific and public interest in “throw‐away” cultures, and renewed government pressure for water and sewerage companies to act as custodians of water resources, raises questions about how and why impactful disposal practices occur and what might be done to change them. To date there has been little systematic research on unflushable products, and little is known about the routines and practices through which unflushable products find their way into wastewater systems. This paper reviews social science research including historical, sociological, and anthropological studies of cleanliness and hygiene, as well as sociotechnical approaches to the study of household practices and infrastructures to understand the challenges of unflushables. Based on this research, the paper offers a new conceptualization of the unflushables challenge. We argue that unflushables are a distributed problem, one that is not the direct consequence of either individual behavior, product design or infrastructural decline, but the outcome of myriad social, cultural and material developments in society. These include diversity in “flushing” cultures, gendered expectations in cleanliness practices; the evolution of conventions around cleanliness and hygiene; infrastructural imaginaries and expectations; and political dimensions of infrastructural development and maintenance. We demonstrate how social science research is essential in defining a new global research agenda on unflushables that further aids the design of new intervention and policy pathways.

中文翻译：

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“无法冲洗的物品”：建立全球议程，以针对与下水道堵塞，水质和塑料污染有关的日常实践采取行动

通过马桶处理不可冲洗的产品是一个长期的问题，并且对环境和基础设施挑战（如胖子，水质和塑料污染）的贡献日益增加。对“丢弃式”文化的科学和公众利益的上升，以及政府对水和污水处理公司施加新的压力，要求它们充当水资源的保管人，这引发了有关如何以及为何发生有影响的处置方式以及如何进行改变的质疑。迄今为止，对不可冲洗产品的系统研究很少，对于不可冲洗产品进入废水系统的常规和实践知之甚少。本文概述了社会科学研究，包括有关清洁卫生的历史，社会学和人类学研究，以及研究家庭习惯和基础设施的社会技术方法，以了解不可冲洗物品的挑战。基于这项研究，本文提供了无法冲洗的挑战的新概念。我们认为不可冲刷是一个分散的问题，这不是个人行为，产品设计或基础设施衰退的直接后果，而是社会中无数社会，文化和物质发展的结果。其中包括“冲洗”文化的多样性，对清洁习惯的性别期望；关于清洁和卫生的公约的演变；基础构想和期望；基础设施开发和维护的政治层面。