Andy Serkis has moved on from his Gollum days to bigger and better things – he’s now the voice of a talking anus.
The actor and film director is urging the public to “be a good a**hole” by not flushing wet wipes down the toilet.
“Hello, I’m an arsehole,” he says in a video, starring an animated asterisk which is designed to (loosely) look like an anus. “But then we’re all arseholes now and again, aren’t we? Like when we flush wet wipes down the toilet.”
Serkis goes on to explain that every year, 93% of London’s sewer blockages come from wet wipes.
“It’s important to take care of your arsehole, and the arseholes of those you love. But afterwards please don’t throw wet wipes in the toilet,” he says.
“Be a good arsehole, put them in the bin.”
When items like wet wipes and sanitary products are flushed down the toilet, they build up in sewerage systems to create ‘fatbergs’.
One such fatberg, discovered in Whitechapel, London, in 2017 weighed a staggering 140 tonnes and measured 250 metres long.
Fatbergs are created from products like congealed fat and oils, wet wipes, sanitary pads and tampons, condoms, cotton wool and other items which absolutely shouldn’t be flushed down toilets or poured down the sink.
They don’t break down, they simply become stuck in the sewers and build up and up until they cause a huge blockage – and it costs a lot of money. It’s estimated the UK spends about £100m a year clearing roughly 300,000 fatbergs.
And it’s not just sewers that are bearing the brunt. Wet wipes are changing the shape of our rivers and beaches – the number found on UK beaches has increased by more than 700% in the last decade.
The video is part of a campaign from environmental not-for-profit City to Sea, which aims to prevent plastic from polluting oceans.
If you’re wondering what you can flush, remember the three Ps: paper, pee and poo.