Starting mid-April, London’s drain hosted for about 10 weeks some of the most squalid, putrid creatures our modern era has created, colossal piles of solidified grease and garbage. The water company Thames Water evaluated the weight of 130 tons for the monstrous ‘Fatberg’ plugging the underground pipes. It was mostly composed of fats, sanitary towels and nappies, and situated in Southwark.
Our present-day heroes, the City’s saviors, act at night. A specific unit of London’s cleaners go down the sewers and put drilling machines in place. Equipped with thick industrial overalls, protection glasses and harnesses, and watched over by silhouettes carrying oxygen bottles, the sewage workers attack the Fatberg, piece by piece. And for good reason. The fat stack turns out to be dangerous, containing sharp objects as knives, but also traces of heroin, cocaine, MDMA and bacteria as E. coli or listeria which could then contaminate the population if they reached the river.
“It is as trying to break concrete. It is frustrating because these situations could be fully avoidable. They are generated by kitchen oils evacuated in the sinks and sanitary wipes flushed in the toilet” deplored Matt Rimmer, Head of the Costumer Field service of Thames Water.
Alex Sauners, Water area Performances Manager for the same company, is categorical: only household waste waters should be poured in the sinks, and nothing apart from fecal matter, urine and toilet paper should be cleared in the latrine. Yet, a considerable amount of cooking fat is thrown away in the restaurants sinks especially. The solidified grease sticks to the walls and metal fixations of the drain, on which detritus then agglomerate, preventing waters to run through.
The worst agents actually are humid multi-purpose towels that do not disintegrate. They hold plastic fibers which dodge the wastewater treatment system and generally wind up in the sea.
Most people would look away and conceal this phenomenon from their minds, trying to forget a residue monster regularly settles under their feet. Indeed, the problem is not recent. It had already made a splash in September 2017 when a fatberg longer than the Tower Bridge and weighting more than eleven double-decker buses had been discovered under Whitechapel (East London). The Museum of London had chosen to face the problem by retrieving a sample of the fatberg to exhibit it to the population as a trigger for second thoughts about their daily environmental behavior, and to international organizations and the education system as an alarm bell.
The whole issue also raises awareness on the importance of the fatty and fast food part of our diets. This could be an area where the exigencies of modern life trump environmental consciousness, most people not having time to go home to have a proper meal for lunch, preferring cheap, easily taken-away food. Part of the blame also goes to restaurants themselves who do not install fat traps under their sinks as there is not proper inspection for waste management.
Once Southwark’s monster was cleared out in April, all the water in the basements was able to drain away naturally. “We will continue to monitor the situation closely, but our tests show the sewer is now flowing as it should.” said a Thames Water spokesman. The question is yet, to what point will this situation get for people to start acknowledging some changes need to be made to avoid an urban catastrophe?
