Running a nursing home can be a challenging assignment. From the health and safety of every resident and staff member to the daily task of maintaining a sprawling facility — it’s a demanding job. With all the tasks managers face, the proper disposal of wastewater is probably not top of mind. However, more and more nursing homes and hospitals are facing challenges with the proper disposal of sewage.

Today’s wastewater is full of more flushable wipes, rags and trash than ever before. Add low-flow toilets and higher strength wastewater and you get America’s “new sewage.” All that debris is causing more breakdowns and blockages in sewer lines. Our love of disposal cleaning products, flushable wipes, cleaning wipes and other convenient one-time use, “flushable” items is taking a terrible toll on sewer systems. It’s particularly challenging at nursing homes, which need cleaning wipes and disposable items to ensure the safety and comfort of their residents.

In a small Michigan township a nursing home was dealing with a terrible wastewater debris problem. Flushable wipes and adult diapers were flowing into the local city sewer system and clogging sewer pipes — quickly leading to manholes that would pop off and cause raw sewage to start flowing into the street.

“There were some issues with adult diapers plugging up the township’s sewer lines,” says Jason Gwinn of Gwinn Brothers Construction, the contractor hired to resolve the plumbing issues. “In one instance the line plugged and it flooded some nearby homes. Worse, the nursing home had to pay to clean up the mess. The township asked them to install a sewer grinder.”

In late 2013, after discussing the problem with local sewer officials, a Monster 3-HYDRO sewage grinder was purchased and installed inside a manhole. The powerful, twin-shafted grinder uses slow-speed, high-torque power to slice through wipes, rags, disposable diapers and other trash and turn it into small particles that flows harmlessly through sewer pumps and pipelines.

“I never knew something like these sewer grinders existed,” Gwinn says. “I went online to the Monster Industrial website and took a look at the grinder video and wow. That sold me right away.”

After viewing JWC’s grinder videos, Jason contacted the team of engineers and sales professionals and they helped him develop a solution to solve the nursing home’s sewer issue.

According to a nursing home facility manager, the Monster sewage grinder is a preferred solution for wastewater problems since the grinder is easy to install, requires little to no maintenance, proven to be reliable in thousands of installations and solves sewer debris problems once and for all. (The facility manager preferred to remain anonymous due to corporate guidelines.)

“The customer definitely seems happy with what went down,” Gwinn says. “Right now if it keeps doing what it’s doing — grinding up all those adult diapers — the customer will be very happy with it.”

The 3-HYDRO model sewer grinder has two rows of sharp steel cutters and uses an energy efficient 3 hp immersible motor for quiet and reliable operation even during high-flow conditions. The Monster sewer grinder features a logic controller that monitors motor load. If it senses a large load, the controller will automatically run the cutter teeth backward and forward to pull in and shred large rag balls. This is why the Monster grinder is so reliable: it can tear apart heavy slugs of debris. If the motor controller senses the item might be a steel wrench that can damage the grinder if it passed through, the grinder automatically shuts down and signals an alarm.

“Everything with the Monster went well — it arrived on time, the order was accurate,” Gwinn says. “Our company doesn’t advertise, so our business is based on word of mouth. We make sure we do what we say we’re going to do. And JWC helped us make this sewer project run smoothly.”