I’ve recently been having problems keeping to my diet and now that I’ve read that article, I might never eat, AGAIN! Thanks!
Important fact I learned on a wastewater plant tour : flushable wipes don’t break down in water. You shouldn’t flush them. Yes, really.
How are they allowed to be marked as flushable if they aren’t?
If we hadn’t discovered it in time, raw sewage could have started
spurting out of manholes across the whole of Kingston.
In engineering circles, this is what’s known as a “fail-gross” system.
To be fair, clearly it was possible to flush them.
You’re welcome.
I for one would like to see more close up and detailed photos of this mighty fatberg…it’s interesting.
I’d like to imagine that given enough time, rat colonies could have burrowed deep into the globular mass, crating a fascinating ecosystem…to say nothing of the insect life!
So because few crybabies cant flush away their turdies, a unique and record holding creation is swept away…how sad.
Now if they could only dislodge the lumps of fat clogging up parliament.
Thank you! Good night!
Oh but it smelled like luscious fish and chips with a hint of curry
Well, apparently fat isn’t flushable either - so either the problem is one of ongoing sewer maintenance or we all start shitting in the garbage bin.
Bahahahahaha. Apparently London is planning a fatberg-burning power plant. And no wonder–“In just one night teams can remove enough material to fill nine double-decker buses.”
Oh, the expression on that poor bastard in the picture (at my link). He looks like he only stopped weeping for the camera and is looking forward to starting again as soon as it’s gone. I can’t blame him.
I worked on storm water drainage in the 1980’s, back when chips were always deep fried in lard which was often discarded into the storm system rather than risk blocking a domestic outlet. So I’ve seen and removed a number of these “bergs” or logs as we called them. Unpleasant but at least relatively benign.
The worst situation encountered though was produced by a supermarket saving money by pouring out of date dairy products into an unsurprisingly blocked car park drainage system. Judging by the volume and eye watering smell given off by the remains it must have been going on for at least five years.
To remove the blockage required pumping out the liquor formed by peutrifaction but in order to get to that we had to break through the hard crust of rotting fat in each manhole chamber. Sewer-men hardened by years of shite-wading emptying themselves as each crust was broken was something I hope never to experience again.
You talk as if there were some limits on the creativity of marketing. What are you, some kind of communist?
For those of us who aren’t British, what’s a wet-wipe? And why are these associated with the fat berg? My guess is that the British expression “wet wipe” refers to what an American would call a “paper towel,” and that the association comes from people wiping up fat spills with paper towels, thus rendering them hydrophobic and oleophilic. But if a wet-wipe is the same thing as an American wet-wipe, i.e. a pre-moistened paper cleansing pad, what’s the story?
There’s something uniquely powerful about anaerobically putrefied dairy products. When I was a lad, I discovered a jug of milk that had been left in the sun behind a shopping cart enclosure.
My innocent brain decided it would be wise to assay the odour of the contents to judge the next course of action.
I learned that day that my brain was not to be trusted with such decisions.
Some things are not meant to be seen…
The British wet-wipe and the American wet-wipe is the same. People are using them in place of toilet paper, as they’re softer and, for those who can afford to pay extra for wiping their bum, they state they’re cleaner as well.
Of course, as mentioned up-thread, wet-wipes don’t decompose in the sewer, and apparently are really, really good at absorbing fat.
uh . . . thanks for making me choke on my breakfast this morning.
