White, wax paper like residue in Moen cartridge

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.

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

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.

It is more like little tiny strips of wax paper

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.