Fatbergs to fuel: London's blockage-busting battle in the sewers | Hacker News Reader

Fatbergs to fuel: London's blockage-busting battle in the sewers

cbc.ca

41 pointsctrlp10 comments

In Portland, we just removed 2.4 million pounds of grease from our sewer system.

http://www.kptv.com/story/36854903/crews-removed-nearly-24-m...

How is the sewage re-routed, anyway? I mean, if a core sewer gets clogged for 9 weeks, it's not like with cars where you can simply direct them to a parallel street?

Or do the workers have to blast the fatbergs while, basically, also standing in literal swimming turds around their legs?

Don't think about it too hard bud.

Yes to the second sentence. They have hazmat suits and a lot of protection.

Never complaining about my job again.

> The company has been working with restaurants that cook with a lot of grease to remind them to collect it and throw it out, rather than dumping it down the drain. It has also instituted a campaign — "Bin it, don't block it" — asking Londoners to help prevent fatbergs.

Is there no requirement that restaurants have grease traps?

Laws don't always motivate action. It seems fine to use a multi-pronged strategy.

It's also probably hard to enforce unless they catch them in the act.

I don't understand why restaurants are just throwing the grease away though. Companies will buy it, pick it up, and use it to make soap or biodiesel or other products they can sell.

> I don't understand why restaurants are just throwing the grease away though

Space, for one reason. The smaller the restaurant, the lower the amount of space that can be dedicated to a grease trap and a storage tank. In other places, the age of the building (or its construction, e.g. when it's without a cellar!) might make constructing one impossible. Or the restaurant might be in a tiny old street that is not reachable by a truck.

Must be some complex of populist politics and regulatory disfunction involved.

Enforcement of a grease trap municipal code requirement would surely be more cost-effective than going down into the sewers to get the stuff out -- but require organization and up-front investment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com