Thread: CVS clogged up?

First off – ignore the headline, this isn’t a UK problem, “The blockages aren’t limited to British soil. The fight against fatbergs is worldwide, with cities like Melbourne, Australia and Baltimore in the US uncovering big ones, too. New York City spent $18 million over five years fighting fatbergs, according to National Geographic.”

Now, if drippings from your breakfast can do this to a city sewer – what can it do to your arteries?

Hmm… is a cardiac catherization in your future?


https://www.aol.com/article/news/201...ewer/23638812/

A fatberg longer than the Leaning Tower of Pisa is clogging another UK sewer

Business Insider AYLIN WOODWARD Jan 9th 2019 9:29PM

Imagine holding a massive, squishy beach ball, except instead of colorful plastic, the ball is made of used condoms, wet wipes, crude oil, and congealed cooking fat from people's morning bacon.

That's a fatberg, and it's what sewer workers in London encounter with regularity.

In 2017, a 150-ton, 820-foot-long fatberg was discovered in the sewers beneath east London. A piece of that record-breaking fatberg was put on display in the Museum of London, where it then started growing toxic mold pustules and even hatched flies.

The Thames Water Authority told the AFP in 2014 that it saw nearly 80,000 fatberg clogs annually, which cost $1.6 million per month to get rid of. Almost 7,000 water authority customers experienced flooding as a result of these blockages.

Now, a 210-foot-long fatberg has been found blocking a sewer in Sidmouth, England, a small coastal town. The blockage is longer than the Leaning Tower of Pisa, stretching more than six buses would if lined up end to end.

A team from South West Water, the company that provides drinking water and wastewater management throughout Devon, England, is now figuring out how to remove the blockage.

Andrew Roantree, a worker with South West Water, told the Associated Press that it will take the crew "around eight weeks to dissect this monster in exceptionally challenging working conditions."

The removal is scheduled to start February 4, but could be delayed due to heavy rain, according to a statement from South West Water. The statement also encouraged consumers to "stop the block by only flushing the 3Ps — pee, paper, and poo — and by not pouring fat, oil, and grease (FOG) down the drain."

South West Water noted that the fatberg "has been discovered in good time," so didn't impact the quality of local tap water.

Fatbergs are difficult and expensive to eliminate. When people pour leftover grease from cooking down the sink or flush wet wipes down the toilet, those waste products aggregate in wastewater and sewage systems. Workers then have to break them up using pickaxes or shovels or blast them with high-pressure water jets.

The blockages aren’t limited to British soil. The fight against fatbergs is worldwide, with cities like Melbourne, Australia and Baltimore in the US uncovering big ones, too. New York City spent $18 million over five years fighting fatbergs, according to National Geographic.

“The United States and United Kingdom report the most fatbergs,” engineer Thomas Wallace, an engineer at University College Dublin, told National Geographic. He noted that these countries produce an abundance of ingredients that create fatbergs — Forbes reported that Londoners produce between 32 and 44 million liters of used cooking oil a year. Aging sewers systems are also to blame, since they aren’t capable of dealing with a large population's trash habits.

Fatbergs can't be left to languish, because the mess can stick to sewer walls and harden. When these blockages solidify, they effectively become balls of concrete that fill the pipes and no longer let sewage pass through. These obstructions sometimes cause sewage to ooze up through manholes or back up into drains in homes. The domestic back-flow can contaminate household water supplies, which poses a risk to human health.

The blockages can also cause flooding that damages property or contaminates nearby bodies of water with sewage, according to a 2017 study.

South West Water said tackling sewer blockages in Devon "adds £4.5 million [$5.75 million] to bills every year."

I blame women? How many guys buy Wet Wipes as a matter of course?

Originally Posted by VocalNeal

I blame women? How many guys buy Wet Wipes as a matter of course?

You forget sanitary towels. They can swell up to the size of a pillow when immersed in water.

Originally Posted by bowie

Now, if drippings from your breakfast can do this to a city sewer – what can it do to your arteries?

They are not doing this. I would say it has to do with the proliferation of takeaways struggling to make any profit stuffing oil down the toilet rather than having to pay for it to be taken away.

Originally Posted by bowie

A fatberg longer than the Leaning Tower of Pisa

the other metric I saw was longer than 3 double decker buses



I propose a new metric - ability to feed 1000 starving ethiopians for 1 year

Now, if drippings from your breakfast can do this to a city sewer – what can it do to your arteries?

I'd suggest flushing the sewers with Alcohol. It works for me.

Originally Posted by Hugh Cow

I'd suggest flushing the sewers with Alcohol. It works for me.

ah, yes... the homeopathic route

Originally Posted by pseudolus

I would say it has to do with the proliferation of takeaways struggling to make any profit stuffing oil down the toilet rather than having to pay for it to be taken away.

Nothing to do with fats/oils being stuffed down the drains. Takeaway oils/fats are recycled and can be used to fuel cars. Also they have catch pits installed to prevent this kind of build up. My experiences says that these 'fat burgers' are in fact mainly made up of compacted washing machine powder.

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

You forget sanitary towels. They can swell up to the size of a pillow when immersed in water.

Ding - that's why women have expanded so much.

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

. My experiences says that these 'fat burgers' are in fact mainly made up of compacted washing machine powder.

Prag, sometimes you worry me... i'm getting a vision of you crawling through sewers.

Actually on that note. I remember a particular afternoon sat in Jools bar Soi 4 when the usual Nana fug got to a level i'd not experienced previously. It turns out the good Governor had decided the Nana sewers needed a blow through and they chose a group of lucky prison inmates to squirrel down them dragging these enormous ropes with huge rope balls to clear the pipes out. Apparently said prisoners were given some sentence reduction or some such in exchange for this work - can you imagine splashing through that lot....Christ.

Originally Posted by NamPikToot

i'm getting a vision of you crawling through sewers.

I worked for the sewer section of a city engineers dep't, local government, for just under 20 years. Regarding crawling through blocked sewers, I'm reliably informed that they do this in India.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/stati...6260110801.jpg

So it sounds like there are no fatbergs in the sewers of Riyadh and Islamabad and .... since they all wipe their arses with their bare hands...

Originally Posted by bowie

https://frontline.thehindu.com/stati...6260110801.jpg

Originally Posted by SKkin

Nana weren't full like that but if you'd have given me the choice, i'd have said give me another year in prison - fuk wading through the Gents gloop.

^"We'll tie this rope around you and reel you in when you're done"

Where do I sign up?

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

'fat burgers' are in fact mainly made up of compacted washing machine powder.

...and a million odd socks, if your theory is right.

Originally Posted by pseudolus

stuffing oil down the toilet rather than having to pay for it to be taken away.

I'll go out on a limb here, and despite the OP mentioning oil, it's not oil that's the problem but fats that harden when cold. Bacon grease, beef dripping, squeezed pimples etc.

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

My experiences says that these 'fat burgers' are in fact mainly made up of compacted washing machine powder.

Apparently also Fatty Alcohol but I don't know what his other nic. is

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

You forget sanitary towels. They can swell up to the size of a pillow when immersed in water.

u just educated me. the one i pulled outa the p4p , i thought it was a pillow.