A quiet moment of respect is surely due to the workers in London who removed a 10-tonne lump of wet wipes and fat from a sewer in Chelsea, London. It was so heavy that it broke the sewer - and it’s set to cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and two months of work to repair it.
Craig Rance of Thames Water will talk to Shane Coleman on today’s Right Hook about the unpleasant operation. Listen live at newstalk.com from 5pm.
These lumps of fat and household waste have been referred to as ‘fatbergs’. They have become a relatively common phenomenon in London and other cities. In 2013, a remote camera captured some of the fatberg in all its ‘glory’, when it was blocking a sewer in the Kingston upon Thames region of south-west London. Suffice to say, it’s not the most pleasant sight, and this apparently isn’t even the main body of the fatberg in question:
Workers eventually cleared the blockage with high-pressure hoses.
Speaking about the latest operation in Chelsea, Stephen Hunt of Thames Water told The Guardian “the original sewer has been so badly abused by fat being chucked down the plughole we’ve had to opt for the time-consuming and disruptive option of replacing many metres of pipe.”
On their website, Thames Water warns that fat, oil, and food leftover from cooking contribute to these fat build ups when washed down the sink. The big problems are caused when that fatty waste combines with wipes, nappies, condoms and sanitary products that do not break down in sewers. Sewers are designed for water, toilet paper and human waste - everything else should be binned instead of flushed down the toilet or washed down the sink.
As you might expect, some bizarre things have however been found in sewers over the years. Mobile phones, false teeth, wedding rings - these, perhaps, are to be expected, as there have been plenty of tales of expensive items accidentally ending up flushed over the years. Dead goldfish, toys, razor blades and other household items are more common again.
But then there’s the really peculiar cases. It was reported a few years ago, for example, that Thames Water recovered half a Mini car from the sewers. BBC, meanwhile, reported in 2010 that a live snake and badger were recovered from Scottish sewers, along with a dead cow and sheep. A working iron was another discovery, while a stolen credit card belonging to the wife of one of the workers was also found. That’s probably not the sort of stolen item you’d be particularly keen to have returned...
Suffice to say, all manner of weird and wonderful things have turned up in the sewers over the years - although significantly weirder and less wonderful after their time in the system, no doubt. So the best advice to everybody is clearly to stick to flushing what’s meant to be flushed - otherwise your area could be affected by an unwelcome fatberg of its own...
