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Does anyone know why the fat doesn't get broken down by bacteria; why doesn't it just rot away?
by rtb 9y ago
Does 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.