A giant,
250-metre “fatberg” of oil, fat and other solid waste blocking a main
sewer under London is to be recycled into biofuel, Thames Water, the
company working to remove it, said on Tuesday.
“The congealed mass under a street in
east London’s White-chapel district will produce some 10,000 litres of
biodiesel, enough to power 350 double-decker buses for one day.
Engineers have removed about one-third
of the 130-tonne blob and expect to complete their “sewer war” against
it early next month, the company said.
It said tankers full of oil and fat, recovered from the mass with high-powered jets, will be sent to a biofuel processing plant.
“Other unflushable items such as baby
wipe, nappies, cotton buds and sanitary products – which should never be
flushed, will be disposed of,” it said.
“It may be a monster, but the
White-chapel fatberg deserves a second chance,” Alex Saunders, Thames
Water’s waste network manager said.
He said that it was the first time the company had tried recycling material from a hunk a sewer waste.
“We’ve therefore teamed up with leading
waste to power firm Argent Energy to transform what was once an evil,
gut-wrenching, rancid blob into pure green fuel,” Saunders said.
Thames Water agreed last week to send a
cross-section of the record-breaking “fatberg” to the Museum of London,
which said its exhibition would raise questions about contemporary urban
life.
Several Twitter users proposed the names Donald or Trump after Thames Water appealed for suggestions.
