HOUSTON — A product that is made to keep you feeling clean is causing some nasty problems for city sewer systems. Despite the labels on the packaging, wastewater system workers say flushable wipes do not dissolve like toilet paper. They are clogging toilets, backing up sewer lines and costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

When you flush a wipe, it travels from your home through the city’s sewer system until it gets to a pump station and eventually ends up at a wastewater treatment plant.

City workers in Sugar Land say the product does not dissolve along the way.

“They stay solid inside of your system. And when they come in, the combination with grease, like you see here, well, it just makes a mess,” Ryon Bell said.

Those messes, facility operations manager Danica Mueller says, are referred to as rags.