NEWS YOU CAN USE: What Do You Do When Your Home’s Sewer Line Collapses? “Ultimately, it was discovered that we had a major breakdown of Orangeburg piping, which is a product used for sewer lines on many homes from the mid 1940’s through the 1970’s. It originated as a fiber conduit pipe that became commonly known as Orangeburg, after the synonymous New York based company that supplied much of the East Coast in that period. Its spread was necessitated by the shortage of iron and harder materials of World War II’s manufacturing needs but continued after the war because it was inexpensive.  According to Arizona infrastructure expert and historian Jon Schladweiler, fiber conduit pipe is made from wood pulp that is centrifugally spin and formed into the shape of a pipe, dried, and then sealed with a hot, liquefied coal-tar pitch. Schladweiler joked over the phone that it is essentially a ‘coal tar impregnated toilet paper tube.’”