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London’s fatberg on show: ‘We thought of pickling it’
- rtb 9y agoDoes anyone know why the fat doesn't get broken down by bacteria; why doesn't it just rot away?
- matthewmacleod 9y agoI understand that there are two things: first, it's not just fat – it's fat plus nappies plus wipes plus sanitary goods. Second, the combination of the fat with metallic salts in the water causes saponification, so you end up with some kind of calcium-magnesium soap mixed in with it.
- Reason077 9y agoLondon's water supply is pretty heavily chlorinated. Wouldn't that surpress bacterial activity?
- Shivetya 9y agoGoing also to say that its likely many of the sanitary items are heavy in medical agents too
- mseebach 9y agoIs it really though? I've lived three places in London and made sourdoughs with tap water in all with no trouble. If it can't kill nacent yeast cultures, I wouldn't expect it to have many chances against sewer bacteria.
- collyw 9y agoLeaving water out for 24 hours will get rid of chlorine, so will boiling. Did your process involve either of those?
- dt_rsp 9y agoLeaving it to stand works for chlorine, but not for chloramine, which a lot of tap water is treated with now instead. One would have to check with one's supplier.
- collyw 9y agoI have been fermenting home made ginger beer either using filtered water, or water sat out for 24 hours. So probably not with chloramine in it.
- folknor 9y agoTLDR: It's not as simple as "apply bleach - things die." Yeast and bacteria are not the same thing. Practically, bleach doesn't kill yeast - if you try to kill fungus in your shower or on a wall with bleach, what that does is make it white. Which to us is a strong indication that it's dead, but it probably isn't. To clean fungus from your shower, for example, you need to mix vinegar and fresh bleach with cold water (of which the fumes can actually kill you as well) and use the solution properly, or use an industrial cleaning agent. Of course, someone who bleaches their shower will probably also wash it after (you should wash it _first_ before applying bleach), which might simply _physically remove_ most of the fungus from the surface. But depending on the solution you use, the fungus won't actually die. Note that the above is mostly true in household use of bleach, and not in correct use. Bleach _does_ kill most fungus if used correctly, but essentially noone does. Hot water significantly reduces the effectiveness of bleach, and so does using _more_ than you should, and also it loses effectiveness rapidly when it comes in contact with unclean surfaces, fat/organic material (which there is plenty of on your wall), etc, and also doesn't have a long shelf-life (20% effectiveness lost yearly if stored properly). It also needs 10-30 minutes of contact time, compared to some prepared solutions that are 90% effective in a few seconds, and 95% effective after 10 seconds.
- dx034 9y agoI doubt that. To me, London tap water never tasts like chlorine, I suspect it's chlorinated much less than most tap water in the US.
- narag 9y agoI thought that you use fluorine in the USA instead of chlorine.
- CapitalistCartr 9y agoFluorine is an additive to prevent teeth decay; chlorine or chloramine is to prevent disease in the water. Both are routinely added in the US.
- joering2 9y agoExactly. Worth adding if you live in USA and have a chance to visit your local water treatment plantation (they always welcome visitors), go see their state-of-the-art system for treating water. What I didn't know is that there is very complicated system that forbids flushing water back into the central system to poison it. The idea is that a terrorist could plug themselves into pipe and inject poison that will travel back to the treatment plant and obviously from there go to each sink, sort of like an online virus :) very cool stuff.
- gambiting 9y agoIs it really because of terrorists? Or because it's simply common sense?
- Spooky23 9y agoThat’s probably just the justification for the grant used to get federal money for the system. The reality is that if you have people equipped to poison the water supply, they will be able to. Most water systems have multiple interconnects with neighboring systems to allow exchange of treated water. Security is typically nonexistent. The good news is that that type of attack isn’t particularly useful as a terrorist event and is likely low risk.
- pjc50 9y agoNot sure, but this is a problem on a smaller scale in domestic plumbing too. I suspect because it's been cooked and lost all its emulsifiers, resulting in a hydrophobic blob. Water-based bacteria just slide off. I've seen cooked fat sit around in a kitchen for ages with no visible decay effects (but I wouldn't use it for cooking!)
- madaxe_again 9y agoFat doesn't decompose very readily - which is why it's commonly used to seal jars of meat products like terrine and pâté. In anaerobic conditions, you get hydrolysis of fat, in which the water content is removed and the fats end up saturated and indigestible further by anaerobic processes. Cf. Corpse Wax. In aerobic conditions, they'll be broken down into aldehydes and ketones. I'm guessing that the interior of a monstrous fatberg is rather anaerobic, so you just end up with a great big blob of saturated fatty acids.
- gambiting 9y agoFat is such a fantastic store of energy I am really surprised nothing evolved to eat it in this form.
- jwilk 9y ago> Flushers report finds of motorbikes, prams, coins, phones and jewellery – and once a live hand grenade. OK, I understand coins, phones, jewellery and even hand grenades. But how do you flush a motorbike or a pram? :-O
- gambiting 9y agoI imagine people open the sewer cover on the street and push stuff in.
- masklinn 9y agoOr dump them in creeks and open channels which may drain through combined sewer systems. It's common to have signs posted around storm drain systems telling people not to dump waste in there, which obviously means people do dump waste in there.
- snrplfth 9y agoWhen you're cooking with motorbikes, it tends to accumulate at the bottom of the fryer or pan as a hot liquid which can be put down the drain, but re-solidifies once it hits the cold water in the sewer.
- baxtr 9y agoThis is truly disgusting. (Sorry.)
- brango 9y agoI like to think that in some small way, I helped make this piece of art :-)
- KozmoNau7 9y agoAnd this is why you never wash cooking oil or fats down the drain. If they don't clog your drains, they will collect like this and cause huge problems in sewers and water treatment plants. Pour it in an empty milk carton or whatever and throw it in the household trash. And pour a full kettle of boiling water down your kitchen sink drain once in a while, it'll prevent fat from collecting and it'll kill any nasty smells, too. E: "Ninety three per cent of its complex structure was said to consist of the element “wet wipe”" And don't flush wet wipes! Why do people still think this is OK?
- gambiting 9y ago>>And don't flush wet wipes! Why do people still think this is OK? Because it literally says "flushable" on them?
- KozmoNau7 9y agoWhich is something the manufacturers continue to get away with, for absolutely no good reason. Consumers' trust in marketing is mindblowing.
- gambiting 9y ago>>Consumers' trust in marketing is mindblowing. On the other hand, I don't feel like consumer should have to care about this at all. If it says flushable, it should be flushable. I'd trust relevant agencies to enforce this, just like they already enforce "free range", "organic" and "juice" - at least here in UK those terms have a legal meaning behind them and consumers can safely know they get what they pay for. If a wipe says "flushable" but it isn't, then that should be rectified on the regulatory level.
- KozmoNau7 9y agoI think one should expect at least some level of critical thought. Wet wipes are stored wet, for weeks, months or years. They do not decompose, in fact they stand up very well to liquids without losing structural integrity. Applying just a bit of critical thought based on those observations, makes it abundantly clear that wet wipes will not dissolve in the wet environment of a sewer, and will in fact very easily get caught and cause a blockage.
- omginternets 9y ago>A third of Londoners admitted they didn't know you weren't supposed to flush fat down the sink. So what am I supposed to do with it? Put it in the trash? That's not acceptable for the same reason that putting anything liquid in the rubbish bin isn't acceptable. :/
- gadders 9y agoQuite often you can wait for it to solidify before disposing of it.
- omginternets 9y agoI have a tiny kitchen with only room for a few pots and pans, which is pretty much the norm in London. That's not a terribly viable solution, I'm afraid. This isn't quite as bad as saying "don't poop in the toilet; wait for it to dry out before putting it in the trash", but it's in the same neighborhood.
- philjohn 9y agoYou pour it back into the container it came in when it's cool, and then you throw it out, or take it to your local household recycling centre where they can dispose of it for you.
- phjesusthatguy3 9y agoOr keep a food tin around after emptying so you can pour the waste fat into it. Or seal it in something reusable and use it as the fat for your next fryjob.
- gadders 9y agoOr make them into "Fat Cakes" to feed birds my adding seeds: https://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/home-garden/gardening/wildlife/birds/how-to-make-a-fat-ball-to-feed-garden-birds https://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/home-garden/gardening/wildli...
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- snarfy 9y agoA plumber I know once told me he could tell the ethnicity of the family that lived in a home by the type and color of grease clogging the drain.
- cobbzilla 9y agoI wish they could somehow preserve it more perfectly. Could they encase the thing in a cube of acrylic? Maybe the heat of the liquid acrylic would damage it? The fatberg should be preserved as a monument to the staggeringly wasteful nature of our current culture. Then keep it on exhibit even after we reach a sustainable future, to remind people what things were like before we started acting more responsibly towards our planet.