Giant 'Fatberg' of Grease and Baby Wipes Jams British Sewer

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The fatberg is hard and nasty and fills the tunnel.
The fatberg is hard and nasty and fills the tunnel. (Image credit: South West Water)

A 210-foot-long (64 meters) monster made from grease and used baby-wipes has clogged up a sewer in Sidmouth in southwestern England. British officials said in a statement they expect that removing the gooey blob, which will happen in "exceptionally challenging work conditions," could take up to eight weeks.

"Fatbergs" like this one have become unpleasantly familiar in the United Kingdom. As Live Science reported back in 2017, workers used high-pressure water jets to slowly break down an 820-foot-long (250 m), 143-ton (130,000 kilograms) "rancid blob" that formed in a London sewer. Eventually, that mass was converted to biofuel, but it took workers months to fully restore function in the affected area. [The Poop on Pooping: 5 Misconceptions Explained]

Part of the problem seems to be the British public's habit of flushing used baby wipes down the toilet, as these can clump together and form the scaffolding for fatbergs. The issue has become serious enough that the government has proposed banning the wipes altogether.

For now officials in Sidmouth are asking residents to avoid contributing to this new mass before workers can remove it, saying, "Don't feed the fatberg."

Originally published on Live Science.

Rafi Letzter
Rafi Letzter
Staff Writer
Rafi joined Live Science in 2017. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of journalism. You can find his past science reporting at Inverse, Business Insider and Popular Science, and his past photojournalism on the Flash90 wire service and in the pages of The Courier Post of southern New Jersey.