Not only do both nations produce copious amounts of fatberg ingredients, but they also have many aging sewer systems ill-equipped to deal with the onslaught of fat and trash from increasing populations. In New York City, grease causes 71 percent of sewer backups, according to the city's 2017 State of the Sewers report. And smaller cities aren't. Two years later, an 11-ton fatberg broke a sewer pipe. The New York Times reported the city spent $4.6 million on the problem in one year. New York City, according to a city report.
Workers resorted to the strategy Monday after they'd begun scraping pieces off last month shortly after the gunk was blamed for a sewer overflow in the cityThe notorious glob was found clogging up to 85 per cent of a century-old 24-inch pipe near Penn Station.Last month, the overflow discharged about 1.2 million gallons of muck into the Jones Falls waterway.Officials said it's the culmination of objects caked along a pipe's walls that shouldn't go down drains.The buildup of the slimy waste inside the pipe was so thick that it slowed sewer water moving through the area. SharePat Boyle with Public Works said: 'We can't treat our toilets like our trash cans.' Officials said there were 'plastic bags, pens, batteries, pennies and coins' that had been flushed down the drain.According to city officials, the fatberg removal will cost about $60,000, and the pieces sucked out of the sewer will be taken to a landfill.September's blockage resulted in the sewer overflows happening underground in the pipe that was created as a pressure-release valve in the event the sewers backed up about 100 years ago. A fatberg (pictured) that's estimated to weigh more than 140 tons was discovered in London's sewer system earlier this monthAnd in 2015 workers spent four days removing a fatberg that was the length of a jumbo jet from a sewer in Shepherd's Bush.In the US, giant lumps of lard and baby wipes were discovered clogging Denver sewers in 2013.The fatbergs were found blocking more than a thousand miles of pipe under the city.Baltimore's most recent fatberg occurred in a 100-year-old pipe that's 24 inches long.
The pipe was caked with oils, grease and congealed fats.Other cases in the US include those reported in San Francisco, New York City, Miami and Washington, DC.In New York, the city spent more than $18 million over a five-year period on wipe-related equipment problems.Among the most common causes of drain blockages are make-up and nappy wipes, fat and grease, chewing gum, dental floss, plasters and building debris.
Last week I was standing inches away from several large dumpsters as they were continuously filled with soaking wet trash that had traveled through the city's sewer system and landed here, right in front of me. These flushed items should have never been flushed, and as such they had been caught by a screen inside of a building at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility. Once fished from a wastewater river that was steadily flowing below me, they were pulled up to where I stood; this process goes on 24/7, 365 days a year. It was like watching an endless loop of soiled wet wipes content. The odor was strong, and unsettlingly difficult to pinpoint.I have seen your waste, New York, I have smelled it, I have recalled the smell of it involuntarily many times over the past week, and I have been stumped by some of what I witnessed, to be quite honest.
I mean, listen, I don't need to know why you're flushing firearms down the toilet. I'm sure you have your reasons.But a pistol was among the list of things I was told had been found in this screening system, and naturally I was curious of the backstory there.
Other items included: cigarette packs, money, condoms, rats, and those cursed wet wipes. Wipes are everywhere in this room, hanging from the ceiling, tangled around ropes and cables and stuck to walls and virtually every surface, even snarling and damaging equipment. These wipes are a huge problem, and the problem is getting bigger.In the below video, you'll meet Pam Elardo, the Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau of Wastewater Treatment in NYC and a goddamn hero. She came to us from Washington state, where she even got Macklemore on board for a campaign about all of this.
(Bet you didn't think you'd hear the name Macklemore in the piece on fatbergs,.)Elardo is delightfully dedicated to her job, and to fixing our fatberg problem (among many other things), along with her team of over 6,000 employees—they are all dealing with our waste every day, so think about them the next time you flush something you shouldn't.In this video, you can spot the aforementioned wastewater river, which sits about three stories below street level, and passes through the screen chamber. The screens catch physical items that were flushed and should not have been flushed, and 'the rakes clean the screens and deposit the material on the conveyor belt where it gets sent to a dumpster.' The wastewater then travels on to the next treatment area, and the dumpsters continue to be filled, destined for a landfill.There are a couple of key ingredients needed for making a fatberg: cooking grease or oils (poured down a drain) and wet wipes (flushed down the toilet). These can combine to lead to three different outcomes:. What I saw. The items land in this facility, are caught by the screens, and sent to a landfill. They meet up in our sewer system and form a congealed mass known as a fatberg.
They intertwine to form a braid-like mass, which, but really they are more like some nightmare garbage version of. Welcome to New York, baby. Pre-fatberg 'wipe kings' being pulled from our sewers. (NYC DEP)Above are some of these 'wipe kings,' but below is what a real deal fatberg looks like when it's stuck in a sewer system; sadly this one is from Michigan, as we have no visual documentation of one in New York City. (Though Elardo told me she saw one here recently that was larger than her, and looked like 'a human Twinkie.'
) What you're seeing is a lot of cooking grease that has been poured down kitchen sinks, and a lot of wipes.According to, the City of New York found that 'more than 70 percent of sewer back-ups were caused by cooking oil and grease. Nationally, others set that number at 47 percent.' So on top of, dispose of cooking grease correctly, too—instead of pouring it down your sink, let it cool, then toss it in the trash. A fatberg in Michigan, 2017.
(Shutterstock)Last year alone, the NYC DEP's Edward Timbers told me, 'There were more than 2,100 confirmed sewer back-ups citywide that were caused by grease and wipes, which comprises nearly 90 percent of total sewer backups.' And the problem is only getting bigger, which is why the city has launched.' Over the last 10 years, debris removed from the screens at DEP’s plants (not just Newtown Creek) has risen by about 75 percent,' Timbers said, 'and cost to remove it has nearly doubled.' In 2007, according to Timbers, 30,392 tons were removed from DEP screens; in 2017, it was 53,269 tons. These unflushable items were flushed, and caught in the facility's screens. This will now go to the landfill. (Scott Heins / Gothamist)It costs $19 million a year to transport all of this to the landfills, and you are footing the bill, taxpayer.
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So not only should you stick to flushing the Four P's (Pee, Poop, Puke and toilet Paper) and not wet wipes, you should really these ' products altogether: Not only do wipes clog sewers and pile up in our landfills, they end up in our oceans and, harming wildlife.Yes, even the ones that say 'flushable' on the packaging. There is an ongoing campaign to stop these companies from labeling their product as flushable (see from The Atlantic a couple of years ago; not much has changed since). Wipes companies believe they will lose money if they remove the word 'flushable,' and they have and will continue to fight to keep it on there. But as we learned in that 2016 report, people are flushing non-flushables anyway, so what we really need to do is ban wet wipes altogether.For their part, Timbers told me that the NYC DEP’s effort is two-pronged—first the department is educating the public through their campaign. Secondly, he says, 'we are working on regulations and legislation to combat the way wipes are currently labeled.
The industry has successfully challenged legislative efforts in other municipalities so we are working with the Law Department to craft legislation that would stand up to similar judicial scrutiny.' Right now you may be in your home, or a nice little restaurant, or a charming cocktail bar, but not very far beneath you there's a system that is transporting our waste.
If you ever flush the wrong things, and/or pour grease down your sink, know that you are contributing to a congealed, Cloverfield-esque, sewer-clogging monster—in London, fatbergs have gotten up to. So please, stop feeding this beast.