Wall of Solid Fat Clogging London's Sewers

Maybe not such a good idea to drain your cooking grease
'Wall Of Solid Fat' Clogging London's Sewers
Garbage hangs from poles at the Vienna sewer. Six decades after "The Third Man" premiered, tourists from around the world pound the Austrian capital's pavement, and even slip into its sewers.   (AP)

An estimated thousand tons of "oily solid food waste" has completely plugged up a portion of the sewer below London's Leicester Square. The fat (enough to fill up nine of London's double-decker buses) created a dam that threatens to cause sewer spills and flooding, so the Thames Water company is solving the problem by hiring a team of "flushers" to go down and shovel it out.

"We're used to getting our hands dirty, but nothing on this scale," a sewer flusher told National Geographic. "We couldn't even access the sewer, as it was blocked by a 4-foot-thick wall of solid fat." Click the link for several photos of the offending mess—but not while eating. (More London wall of fat stories.)

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