Originally published at: Epic 1km fatberg chokes sewers in Birmingham, UK | Boing Boing
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Maybe it’s time we ban these wipes?
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Is there something about UK sewer design that promotes fatberg formation? Every time I hear a fatberg story, it’s in Britain. I imagine this is related to their sewers being old and cobbled, but you’d think that the US infrastructure system in all its glory would also be prone to fatbergs.
Maybe we just don’t like to brag about our fatbergs as much.
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Honestly, cities ought to solve this particular problem more directly. Oil and grease shouldn’t go down the sink, and in places lucky enough to have municipal composting, it shouldn’t go in the compost, even though everyone puts it there.
It needs to go in the bin, but not everyone wants to pour hot grease or oil into their trash bags, so then you have to let it cool and scrape it off, if it’s a saturated fat, or pour it into a can that you’re throwing out (instead of recycling) or a bunch of paper towels or something.
Cities should give homes dedicated oil cans to dumps spent oil into, and the pick them up and either dispose of them properly or sell them to a biowaste-burning power plant or something.
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It wasn’t that long ago that grease and used cooking oil was a sought-after commodity. in my opinion, this is a consequence of radical abundance.
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I’m sure your suspicion is correct. The victorians built the sewers so well they’re still in use, but the population has doubled since and people keep filling them with undegradable garbage.
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I think it’s the diet. Jellied eels really gum up the works.
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My guess is it’s mostly just one of those media crazes; people got excited by that one fatberg story, so now every sewer blockage is a named Fatberg Event with its own facebook page.
I think if you asked anyone who works in the sewer industry anywhere in the world, they’d tell you people flushing inappropriate stuff is a big problem. Which implies they do have issues that could be branded as fatbergs, if the local news were so inclined.
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FATBERG IV: REVENGE OF FATBERG
I leave it to the more talented members of the BBS to create an appropriate fake movie poster.
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Yeah, I was thinking the same thing - use it as an alternative fuel.
They happen in the US too. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wtsp.com/amp/article/news/local/tampa-fatberg-removed/67-bf9f4bde-e5a5-4993-a350-f9d090ed45df There are some differences in rates of occurrence with sewer size and habits but it is a problem everywhere. The Northeast Ohio Sewer district maintains a lovely Twitter account to try to educate people on how to avoid them.
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The M6 is a motorway not a highway the UK does not have highways…
Well not since the days of highway men thou we do still have a highways authority,
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Technically and legally it is a highway in the UK, but so is this
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FATBERG V: ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH
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FATBERG VI: THE FATBERGENING
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FATBERG 7: FAST AND FURIOUS
Or is that FAST & FURIOUS 7: THE FATBERG ?
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Nothing to do with the sewers, everything to do with stupid people throwing inappropriate things into the toilet, and pouring equally inappropriate materials down the sink; liquid cooking fat and oil will obviously emulsify as soon as it mixes with the liquids in the sewage system, combine that with thousands of wet wipes which will not dissolve and you have the recipe for a whole shitload of horrid stuff glommed together in an almost inaccessible environment.
No sewer system is designed to function under these conditions.
I think clusterfuckup just about sums it up.
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But surely, the UK does not have a monopoly on stupid people. That said, as @moortaktheundea points out, they do get reported in the US too. But most of the times I come across stories about fatbergs they are in the UK.
Maybe I encounter most of those stories at BoingBoing and I’m experiencing a UK-centric fatberg bias from @beschizza.
Perhaps it’s more that “look at this fatberg!” has become a viral UK local news staple but not in the US, so there’s more of them in the news. Fatberg stories carry strong UK tabloid notes of hardworking government vs irresponsible civilians that don’t do so well in the US.
UK water authorities like to be seen to working hard and will call the paper; US ones tend to prefer being invisible and won’t publicize this sort of problem. (It’s not a public vs private thing, though – I just checked and UK water provision is more privatized than the US) Stuff like that.
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