White, wax paper like residue in Moen cartridge

[revie54]

I have a strange thing happening. My tub faucet started leaking so I went to replace the cartridge as I have done a few times before. When I removed the Moen cartridge it had a bunch of pieces of little wax like paper stuck in different parts of the cartridge. I put in a new cartridge and it started leaking again a couple of days later. When I pulled out the new cartridge it also had this wax paper stuff clogging it up. Any ideas what this stuff is and how to get rid of it? Thanks.

[Terry]

Small white plastic particles would perhaps be a water heater dip tube.
Is it on the hot or the cold side?

[revie54]

Thanks for the reply. It is a single handle faucet. It does not look like the little residue that I see when I drain the hot water heater (it is real old) if that's what you are talking about.

[revie54]

It is more like little tiny strips of wax paper

[jadnashua]

There was a batch of water heater dip tubes that failed - they literally broke up into small white flakes. An old WH might have had one in it...that event was a long time ago. This did two things: clogged up valves, shower heads, and aerators; and, caused you to run out of hot water faster since instead of adding the cold water to the bottom of the tank, it mixed with the hot at the top.