As every year in the United Kingdom, the authorities fear that the pipes will be blocked by sometimes enormous grease blockages. They are called “fatbergs”, literally icebergs of fat.
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Every year during the festive period, grease icebergs – blockages of grease blocked in pipes – worry authorities in the United Kingdom. Water and waste companies warn.
Annual bill to combat this scourge: 100 million euros, paid by residents via their water bill. So we must communicate, particularly before Christmas to remind people of this message: the cooking fat from the traditional turkey, the oil used to fry potatoes or even alcoholic liqueurs made from cream, very popular at this time. period, should not be thrown down the sink! This is the widely disseminated recommendation.
The phenomenon is known. These fats, once in the pipes, collect other unwanted waste in this location such as wipes, diapers or condoms. All this material cools, solidifies and blocks the pipes. This can be the drain of a sink when it’s a small size but there have been famous examples of real monsters preventing a drain from working properly. This was the case in Birmingham, the country’s second city, two years ago: a fatberg one kilometer long, which weighed 300 tonnes. It took a month of work to get rid of it. This threat has existed for years with waste evolving in an old, unsuitable disposal system.
A fatberg written in the history of London
One of these “monsters” even has the right to his own memorial. A manhole cover in east London engraved with: “The Whitechapel fatberg was defeated here in 2017”, as we celebrate a historic battle. Six years ago, this gigantic 130-tonne cap mobilized Thames Water teams 24 hours a day. It made headlines all over the world. Two fragments were even taken and then exhibited in the city museum, with quotes from those who had faced him. For example : “Destroying that fatberg was like fighting a giant creature from the movie Harry Potter in the streets of London. Here we find this very British ability to create beautiful legends.
If you come to London and want to see the place where the furious battle against this fatberg took place, you must come to the corner of Court street and Whitechapel road: that is where the commemorative plaque is located.