Bus-sized lump of fat discovered in London sewer

By techbeck
in Real World News

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techbeck

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county-clean-fatberg-image_large_verge_m

 

London water authority Thames Water has discovered what it calls the UK's largest "fatberg;" a mushy deposit of congealed fat and sanitary wipes. Found in a sewer in Kingston, South West London, the fatberg was roughly the size of a bus, and weighed 15 tons. "We've never seen a single, congealed lump of lard this big clogging our sewers before," says Gordon Hallwood, supervisor at Thames Water. The blockage was discovered after local residents reported being unable to flush their toilets.

 

The horrific deposit was so large that it's taken the sewer in question out of action. Before it was removed, it had reduced the sewer's capacity to just five percent of its regular level, and the damage it caused will take six weeks to repair. "If we hadn't discovered it in time, raw sewage could have started spurting out of manholes across the whole of Kingston." Thames Water has been pleading with Londoners to not dispose of fat and wipes through their drains. It removes tons of fat from London sewers every month at a great cost to customers, and has recently started using the fat to generate electricity.

 

http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/5/4589874/bus-sized-fatberg-breaks-london-sewer

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UseLess

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how else would you dispose of wipes?

 

a bin?

 

I like the idea of reusing it for power generation =P A good laugh if not practical.

 

Think this would win one of the "worlds worst jobs" for shoveling this stuff!

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Biohead

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Fat and sanitary wipes? Could that be any more disgusting.

 

The addition of nappies, condoms and just about anything else that people shouldn't flush - but you always get those people that do  :x

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Charisma Veteran

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Aw, your mother went swimming and took a wrong turn, eh? >.>

 

 

 

 

(sorry, this is a gold mine for 'your mum' jokes)

 

 

also, EW.

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Max Norris

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Holy hell... Added another reason to be glad I picked the career choice that I did. Would hate to be one of the guys having to tackle that monstrosity. Feel like I need an antibiotic shot just looking at a picture of it.

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Bryan R.

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KILL IT WITH FIRE ! Kill eeet!

Could you imagine? Using fire to burn this would be incredible. It would probably start to melt off in flaming chucks. The smell of burning used lard and excrement would probably knock you out too. 

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jimkraz

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Back in my younger days I worked with a local council roads department, that meant blocked sewers etc. etc, usually outside a hotel you would have this problem, and this was over 40yrs ago, without the tech gear they will have now, or the chemicals, we had to push metal rods up the pipe with large cork screw type attachment, work it into the fat and draw it back to the manhole, it was the most disgusting stink ever, being sticky and clingy, it stuck to everything, just thinking about it now makes me want to throw up, yet we used to stop for lunch and eat without think about it, back then. Jim

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