‘Fatberg’ The Size Of A Bus Found In London Sewer

A 15-ton ball – dubbed a ‘fatberg’ – of fatty food scraps and thickly treated paper unwisely flushed down toilets in suburban London amassed in a local sewer.

The massive blob of waste was the size of a small bus and threatened to shut down the local sewage system in Kingston, Surry, reported MSN Now. If it had managed to block the system before it was discovered and removed, the fatberg would have caused raw sewage to shoot out of the manholes.

According to the Thames Water Company, this latest manifestation of a fatberg was the largest ever recorded in Britain. The process of removing the historical waste behemoth from the sewer took days. Though fatbergs are a common problem the Thames Water Company deals with, they believed it was important to make this particular one public, reported CBS News. They hope that more information about the damage of flushing fatty foods and baby wipes will deter people from the behavior in the future.

Since the Thames Water company was able to remove the mass before the waste spurted onto the city streets, public health wasn’t in danger. The same could not be said in a London summer over a century and a half ago when the British city suffered through the Great Stink.

In 1958, flush toilets had been a relatively new novelty for most Londoners, leading to great build-ups of waste in the old cesspit system. The heat combined with the waste overflow led to a terrible odor sweeping the city and cholera outbreaks. Over the next six years, the modern sewer system was created, which if not used properly, leads to unpleasant fatbergs.

– Chelsea Regan

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