June 6, 2020 • 46 mins
What monsters of fatty flesh lie slumbering in the sewer guts of our great cities? Join Robert and Joe as they venture into the dark to discover the beast we all made together. (Originally published 6/4/2019)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.
Time to go into the Old Vault. This episode originally
aired on June four, nineteen, and it was called The
Soap Dragon. This was about the monsters that we make
in our sewers out of fats, oils, grease, and wet wipes,
all the things you should not put down your drain,
(00:27):
you should not flush, and yet people do a k
a fat Bergs. This was the episode I believe that
gave us fatburg Cop so uh, one of our favorite
recurring characters on the show. So so yeah, let's let's
jump right in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you,
(00:55):
welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is
Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and I thought maybe
we should start off with a little don't do what
Donnie Don't does? All right, tell you tell us about
Donnie Don't. Okay, so let's let's let's see what Donnie
Don't is doing and see if maybe we should don't
do what he does? Uh, try and spot the don't.
So Donnie Don't is he's cooking up a big old
(01:16):
mess of French fries in his deep friar, and he
eats all the fries while watching RoboCop three, and then
it's time to clean up. So first of all, he
realizes he is greasy all over from eating this big
batch of fries, so he gives himself a good wipe
down with some wet wipes, and then he flushes them
down the toilet. Now it's time to get rid of
the gallon of duck fat that he used to cook
his fries. So what does he do? He pours it
(01:38):
straight down the drain in the bathtub. Now, I think
most of us can easily I don't know about all
of us, because somebody's obviously doing what Donnie Don't does,
but I think most of us can easily spot the
Donnie don'ts here. He's made several errors, but now I
think it's pretty common knowledge that you are not supposed
to flush wet wipes and other non toilet page products
(02:00):
down the toilet, and you're definitely not supposed to pour
fat down the drain. Yeah, I mean there's some other
things that he's doing to potentially criticize. I mean, I
don't I don't know how how often he's eating French
fries that have been fried in duck fat. Like, if
he's doing that too often, that's probably not great for
his health. But you know, once in a while, why not, right, Um,
(02:22):
RoboCop three, I have no problem with that. It may
not be the strongest of the RoboCop movies, but it's
uh it has like cyber Ninjes in it. That's kind
of cool. But yeah, it's the it's the wet wipes
and then pouring that grease down the drain. And it's
the pouring of the grease down the drain. I often
forget that. That is a key rule. Oh do you
do you break this one? No? I I just I'm
(02:42):
generally not in a position to break it because we
just don't. We don't cook with with fat uh much
anymore at all anymore. And uh, and then as far
as wet wipes go, like I know, not to put
wet wipes down though, really no oils in your house,
no salad dressing, no like, no olive oil or anything.
But not duck fat. Oh well, I mean, of course,
(03:04):
other like non animal fats are still like fats and oils.
But I guess what I'm thinking, Like I I remember,
so I shouldn't have said just duck fat. I mean
that you're not supposed to pour oil or lipids of
any time down a drain but but but specifically like
the you know, like a big fry vat kind of
drainage situation. Like I I remember seeing jars of of
(03:28):
of fat and oil like underneath the sink. Oh yeah,
growing up, because like that was, you know, the appropriate
thing to do. That's a grandma's house kind of thing,
like the big old mason jar of bacon grease under
the sink. And then of course when whenever we go,
if you go to um a fast food restaurant or
even a restaurant in general, you're gonna find that big
grease trap outside. Like sometimes it's a little bit hidden,
(03:50):
but sometimes there's no place to hide it. It's just
right up front. It's just there in the parking lot. Yeah.
I remember one of my jobs that I worked at
when I is in college. Every morning when i'd go
into it, I'd have to park in the parking lot
of a restaurant that was like next to where I worked,
and I parked right next to their big it was
(04:10):
like a Burger and Fry's place and the heart next
to their big grease grease depository. Uh. And it just
looked like the saddest robot from some Star Wars spinoff,
like Lithuanian Star Wars has our Ford, uh, you know
D seven And it's this big black thing with with
like this dripping, sad, grease tears stained head. But of
(04:34):
course that's this restaurant usage, and we can I think
we can all understand that. I mean, there's certain rules
and regulations there they're following, and they're also producing just
a ton of this, uh, this material. I wonder if
like the problem with a household situation is either you're
creating so little that you don't think about it, so
it's like death by thousand cuts right right, or you know,
when you do produce a more sizeable amount doing you know,
(04:57):
some sort of frying scenario like you do, suddenly have
this this huge mess to clean up. And it's easy
to just convince yourself, I'm just gonna do the easy thing.
I'm just gonna go and put it down the sink
and next time I'll do better. Right, Who's gonna know,
But maybe we should step back and ask a question.
I mean, it's not like RoboCop is going to show
the house, right, right, So that's what they do in
(05:20):
RoboCop too, right. They reprogram him so instead of fighting crime,
he goes out and he he pursues uh, minor infraction,
minor and littering and stuff like that and people using
swear words. Uh. So we should ask this question of
wait a minute, why are you not supposed to do
these things? Why are you not supposed to pour oil
and fat and grease down the drain? Well, one reason
(05:43):
you're not supposed to do this has to do with
the way sewers work. Sewers are, I say, with no hesitation,
one of the greatest human inventions. And if you doubt this,
listen to our invention episodes on the toilet, or listen
to uh we did an episode of stuff to blow
your mind out, the miasma theory of disease. And in
all of these we talk about how you know, properly
(06:05):
maintained sanitary sewer facilities are are not not just there
to make our homes and our streets more pleasant, like
they play a crucial role in protecting public health and
preventing outbreaks of diseases, especially fecal oral route diseases which
are as gross as they sound, diseases like cholera. UH.
Sewers work when everything flows smoothly to its destination point
(06:28):
at a treatment facility, and they're one of the best
innovations in the history of civilization. I say that no
qualifications at all. But sometimes things get in the way,
like tree roots can intrude on sewer pipes and block flow.
We live here in Atlanta where there are a lot
of trees and a lot of a lot of old
large trees and places that are intersecting with sewer pipes,
(06:50):
and so this we know about this happening a lot. UH.
And of course they can cause turbulence and this can
lead to build up. Or we can have old, decaying
sewer mains that crack and do similar stuff. And sometimes
blockages in these sewer sewer pipes occur from the inside out.
One of the most all inspiring things that can block
(07:11):
a sewer is what we're going to be talking about today.
It's something that has in recent years come to be
known as a fat berg. According to an article I
was reading by Kelly oaks and new scientists from earlier
this year. Uh. This term was apparently coined in two
thousand and eight, but it became widely popular after news
reports about a huge fatberg in and what it refers
(07:36):
to is a giant, solidified mass of stuff based on
fats and oils that just states in the heart of
a sewer system, feeding on things like wet wipes and
floss and other trash, but especially on fats and the
byproducts of fats, like cooking oils, you know, uh, grease
(07:57):
from cooking animals, all that stuff that people wash down
the drain when they just either dump out oils they
cook with or just when they wash their dishes and
the oils that are already on the dishes come come
off and go down the down the tubes. Yeah, I
understand that they're like the wet wives, the floss, all
that can can sort of serve as a substrate. Right.
It was like a scaffolding on which this, uh, this
(08:20):
new mass will form. Yeah, and we'll talk about how
it forms in a little bit. But I wanted to
talk about the terminology because while fat bergs has really
caught on with the public, this is like what I
think The reason that there have been so many articles
in recent years about fat bergs is just because of
the term fat bergs, Like there was now this beautiful,
(08:40):
attractive terminology for it, whereas previously, especially in the US,
I think they were referred to primarily with the acronym
fogs for fat oil and grease or frogs for fat
roots as in tree roots and oil and grease. But
have a really missing opportunity there to dug to dub
them for instead of frogs, same letters, but it would
(09:01):
have scratched more of a chudditch, you know, and I
think maybe would have resonated a little more. Maybe not
as much as fat bergs ultimately did, but I mean
attack of the forges where the forges, I feel like
that could have resonated with with the public. If there
is not already a movie about one of these things
becoming sentient, there will be soon. But one particularly massive
(09:23):
fat burg that we might linger on for a bit
has been covered extensively, especially in the British press. This
was the White Chapel Burg. It was removed in Tween
and it was a mass blocking the sewer under the
under White Chapel Road in East London. I think this
was Jack the Rippers neighborhood. Yeah, I think that adds
to the appeal of the white Chapel Fatburg. And it
(09:46):
sounds even more sinister exactly. And the burg itself, in
a way, was sort of a white chapel. It's like this, uh,
this unholy things, sort of a gray off white color.
And so it was about two hundred and fifty meter
ars long or about eight hundred and twenty feet, and
it weighed probably about a hundred and thirty tons. And
(10:07):
this monster was so magnificent that a piece of it
was broken off and displayed in a special exhibit in
the Museum of London. And I came across a gorgeous,
absolutely haunting description of this sewage fatburg fragment by Sam
Knight in The New Yorker. And this, this description of
the Fatburg was so moving that I have to quote
(10:29):
from it. Are you ready, Robert? The piece of Fatburg
was slightly smaller than a loaf of bread and looked
like it might have come from the moon. It was
putty colored and marked everywhere with geological looking indentations, including
a cluster of fingerprints from when it was removed from
a sewer. In East London last October and lifted through
(10:50):
a manhole. On the surface, there was also a dark
fragment from an autumn leaf which must have slipped down
the drains into its mall. Emerging through the congealed cow
alsified fat was the purple and orange perforated edge of
a double decker chocolate bar wrapper. Every detail of the
hideous object was starkly visible because it was resting on
(11:10):
a bed of black granules under a spotlight in a
glass box at the Museum of London at the opening
of its new exhibition Fat Bird. I stared at it
for a while, and while I did so, a tiny
dark speck on the Fat Bird became animate and started
to move. A fly the size of a pinhead flew
(11:31):
up and battered against the glass. That's pretty great because
he capture us this sense of it almost being alive
and uh, and and also this this haunting feeling that
it is like our sins. Uh, may you know, manifested
into a physical form, Like here is all your recklessness
(11:51):
and your you're you're willing and stuff to flush inappropriate
things down the toilet. Well, here it is altogether, uh,
to confront you to point it's grotesque finger at Yeah,
I hope this description of the fatburg it's nominated for
like a Pulitzer Prize. That's uh, it's powerful stuff. But
the seen white chapelberg that mentioned a minute ago was
(12:13):
by no means the only fatburg. Fat Burgs form all
the time in cities all around the world due to
people flushing and washing fats and other inappropriate stuff down
the drain. According to Night's article, it's estimated that London
alone has at least five large fat bergs at any
(12:34):
given time, So sometimes you know, they go down there
to fight them, but they're they're always new ones forming.
So let's talk about size. They can become so huge.
Let me restate what I said a minute ago. This
white Chapel beast was two hundred and fifty meters long,
which is approximately the length of the Hindenburg, and it
(12:54):
weighed probably about a hundred and thirty tons or heavier
by about a third than the biggest ever soarra pod dinosaurs.
Of course, it makes sense because they were talking about
a massive sewage system. We're talking about massive consumption, a
massive population, and therefore the clog the thing is going
(13:14):
to be massive as well, well, yeah, and also you
want to consider the particulars of the London sewer system,
because this is where a lot of these stories come from.
The London sewer system. You know, it's it's got Victorian elements,
and it was the sewer system built over a hundred
years ago, uh, you know, back in Victorian times, as
a response to the great stink you know that we've
talked about on on this show before, where the you know,
(13:37):
sewage being discharged into the Thames. One year in the
believe it is the eighteen fifties or sixties, sometime in
the middle of the nineteenth century, it got so foul
and it stanks so bad that Parliament was just you know,
about to puke in their uh, in their deliberation chambers.
And so they eventually did something about it, and that
was to get this sewage system, uh, not only because
(13:59):
of the smell, but also because it was a you know,
the sewage system that they had in place of the time,
which consisted of more like open sewers in the streets
and stuff draining into the Thames which then people would
drink out of. It was just leading to the collar
out breaks and terrible public health conditions and these horrible stinks.
So they created this massive sewer system under the ground
(14:21):
in order to take away all of the waste water
and discharge it away from the city. So you've got
these like in some cases very large, like old, elaborate
and some sometimes kind of beautiful brick built sewage channels
and you know, access tunnels and all this. Uh so,
so you've got old facilities. But you might be wondering. Okay,
so one of these giant beasts, You've you've got a
(14:43):
hindenburg of fat and sewage and waste stuck in the sewer, blocking,
blocking things, preventing them from flowing. What do you do
about it? Well, that's the question. We're gonna take a
quick break and when we come back we will answer it. Okay,
we're back. So we're talking about fat bergs. How do
(15:03):
you fight them. You've got one of these giant concrete
fat conglomerations made out of wet wipes and and dental
floss and old you know, wrappers of food and bits
of plastic, and of course all of these fats and
oils and grease and sewage and waste. It just makes
this huge mass that blocks up the sewers. What do
(15:24):
you do about it? Well, you literally have sewer workers
that go down to break it up and remove it.
The city sewer workers in London are known as flushers,
and they have to fight these wicked villains. They have
to go down and confront the ball rog in person.
And in Night's article in The New Yorker, he he
talks about the process of breaking up the White Chapel mass. So,
(15:47):
first of all, he says, they've got to wear protection,
and they've got to have a breathing apparatus because this
thing is in a way alive. It's got a lot
of uh life feeding on it, and as a result,
it can let out sudden explosion of gas like hydrogen sulfide,
which of course smells like rotten eggs and is the
It's a common gas released as a byproduct of decaying
(16:07):
organic matter, but it also releases methane, and sometimes it
can just blast out carbon monoxide, which can be deadly.
So let's say you're outfitting your D and D Adventure
the flusher class to go down into this dungeon and
fight the monster. What weapons do you want to equip
them with? We'll probably not fire. Fire would seems like
a bad idea. Oh yeah, that's uh. And and unfortunately
(16:28):
they are not a magic using class, so they don't
have any spells available to them. I don't know. Is
that a thing in D and D there's some classes
who can't do spells, right? Uh? Yeah, I mean it
seems like there are a lot of classes that have
some sort of magical abilities, especially as they level up.
But yeah, this sounds more like like fighter um uh
material right here. You need somebody to go down and
(16:49):
physically fight this physical threat and remove it. These are paladins.
I'll allow it. I'll allow it. I mean, paladins have
some some you know that they have holy powers, et cetera.
But a lot of these powers are about like, you know,
increasing their physical prowess. Right, Okay, certainly I don't know
my stuff. Sorry, Okay, we'll say their paladins anyway. Uh So,
(17:10):
the Mighty Flusher's weapons include the bomb hose. That's the
term bomb hose, which is just like a high pressure
water jet that should be able to cut through blockages.
It's like a cutting jet. But apparently, according to Night's article,
even this didn't work all that well on the hardened
mass of the White Chapelberg, and so later on these
these warriors had to use more old fashioned implements like
(17:33):
pick axes, shovels, and he says in one case even
us Saul. When pieces were removed and kept for the
London Museum exhibit, one expert who handled them described the
fatberg chunks as sort of hard but light feeling like
pumice stone. I think that was interesting. Yeah, but even
(17:53):
the smaller one so so that one's gigantic, But even
the smaller ones are still huge in disgusting ways. I've
on a brilliantly funny article with a great title on
Atlas Obscura by Jessica lee Hester from January of this year,
is called seven big Things. They're smaller than this fatburg,
and it refers to another British fatburg, one found in
(18:14):
a sewer beneath the town in beneath the town in Devon,
and according to the water utility in that area, it
was the largest fatberg that they had come across in
that area. It was about two ten feet or about
sixty five ms uh. And so so what are the
things she lists as smaller than this fatberg, at least
in terms of dimensions. I don't think they had weight
on it at the time she was writing. Um, so
(18:37):
smaller in terms of length was the above water surface
height of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic, the tallest
known Ginko tree in the world, the Christ the Redeemer statue,
and Rio de Jannaro, the Coney's Island or the Coney
Islands Wonder Wheel, uh, the Statue of Liberty, the Roman Colosseum,
(18:59):
and Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square all smaller than this Fatburg,
which is not even the largest Fatburg by a long shot.
And she also pointed out something in in her article
that was just an interesting phrasing of things that it's
sort of echo thoughts I'd been having as I was
reading about Fatburg's in in Hester's words quote, the chunky
(19:20):
gunky sewer cloggers are murky mirrors into the behaviors of
people above ground because they hold all the stuff we
flush and try to forget about, including cooking, grease, napkins, floss,
minstrel products which don't belong in the pipes in the
first place. So it's this idea of like these are
sort of the the places of all the things that
(19:41):
we want to just get out of our lives. It's,
you know, the purging of convenience all becomes this mass. Yeah,
and again it kind of it confronts us once more.
The horror is even greater because it is all it
is a it's it's congealed into this this massive form.
And I think maybe that is part of like the
psychological reason why people can't look away, Like why was
(20:03):
there a museum exhibit about these things where everybody wanted
to go see them? It's this fascinating, uh, you know,
almost kind of freudy and feeling kind of thing, like
the suppressed part of our culture and civilization. It's what's
shoved down and covered up and not looked at, almost
out of a sense of shame, and it becomes this stuff.
(20:24):
And and a lot of our modern life is about
distancing ourselves from the reality of our waste, from the
reality of our dead things of this nature. So so yeah,
I think it's it definitely speaks to us on that level. Okay,
maybe we should turn to the question of how, like
how do simple bits of cooking oil and other fat
turn into these mighty slumbering beasts, the monsters of the
(20:46):
dungeon because it could seem almost magical right that it's
it's it's like this thing has become alive down there.
It is like one of these uh you know, they're
multiple uh uh you know, I think horror properties where
some sort of garbage monster come is alive, and it
basically fulfills the same purpose we're talking about here, to
confront us and to uh, you know, to to show
(21:08):
us the horrors of our of of of our you know,
disposable society. But but there's a very but the process
is happening here is not magical. It is you know,
we can we can we can look at what is
happening chemically. Yeah. Uh so obviously there's one extremely simple
way that there are multiple ways here, but there's one
extremely simple way that fat can end up blocking sewer pipes,
(21:30):
and that's by congealing. Like if you ever cooked bacon,
cooked bacon in a pan, what happens, Well, the white
solid fat in the bacon in the animal flesh renders.
It turns into a fluid that runs around in the
pan like water, and it flows, so you can pour
it out, et cetera. You can pour it down the drain.
But that's only because it's hot. If you take that
(21:50):
bacon grease and you leave it out at room temperature,
you put it in the fridge, we all know what happens, right,
It turns into a kind of waxy solid and this
is large, right. Yeah, I guess the cure process of
bacon doesn't change that. Yeah. So it's pork fat either way. Uh.
And now not all fats can geal into solids or
semi solids at room temperature, but plenty do. So if
(22:11):
you melt this fat and then pour it down the
sink into cold pipes and wash it away, the cooling
fat forms a solid or semi solid mass that can
build up. It can coat surfaces and so forth, and
can of course block sewer pipes. So that that that's
like the simple version. That's just one way fat can
clog up your sewers. That one reason you don't want
(22:33):
to put it down there, right, And I think we
can all grasp that even if if you've ever washed
dishes before, you can get a sense of how, how
what's happening exactly. But this is actually not the main
piece of chemistry contributing to fat bergs. The truth is
actually weirder. Often the fats that we wash down the
drain essentially become soap. The chemical process is known as
(22:55):
saponification uh. This word comes from the Latin sapo, meaning
so And once a mass of fat gets washed down
the drain, it chemically breaks down into fatty acids, and
these fatty acids undergo a chemical reaction in the alkaline
environment of the sewer, combining with other elements and compounds,
often calcium, to form this calcified soap like deposit. And
(23:20):
of course, as we all know, soap can be pretty solid,
like you you don't want to get whacked with a
bar of soap in the bottom of sock. But it
gets even worse because calcified fat bergs build up a
real kind of rigidity. Like the workers who have to
cut them out sometimes compare them to concrete by the
time you have to go in and break them up. Uh.
And I don't know exactly what leads to all that.
(23:42):
It might be this forming of a solid mass and
then like the sort of compacting of time, you know,
thing of pressure just forcing it together. But the soap
like masses tend to form around solid pieces of trash
that get flushed down the toilet. So that's the other
major component we mentioned earlier. Like wet wipes are by
far the worst defender here. This is in all the
(24:03):
British press about this is just saying like, don't wash
fats and oils down the drain and don't flush wet wipes.
Don't flush wet wipes. Wet wipes are like the most
hated thing but the sewer workers. And that's of course
because you know, they're not designed industrially the way like
toilet paper is, which is made to break up when
it's in this aqueous environment. The wet wipes tend to
(24:26):
not break up. They stick together and they form a
sort of binding or substrate for this nightmare soap of
the deep on its way to becoming a berg. I mean,
it makes me think of the of the science stories
we've covered about uh creating artificial Say years we have
some sort of a scaffolding on which you're gonna you're
gonna build up like the you know, the collagen and
(24:48):
create this artificial piece of flesh. It's kind of like
that process taking place in a foul sewer. But imagine
that process is taking place where stuff just keeps flowing
into it, so it just keeps getting more solid material
like wet wipes and more like binding soap like fat
structure until it becomes an ear the size of the Hindenburg.
(25:11):
Another contributor to the fat bergs in the London sewers,
and not just the London sewers in other places, but
especially in London sewers is old rough brick surfaces. I'm
not positive, but I think the mechanism here is that
rough surfaces create more friction with the flowing water, and
this causes turbulence. Instead of flowing smoothly the water or
(25:32):
the you know, the sewage, it gets sort of churned
up and this interrupts the smooth flow and it gives
uh and and so it causes build up of solid matter.
But also I think the rough surfaces just sort of
give the wet wipes and other trash little crags to
catch on, and then of course once they catch on,
other things can catch onto them, and it just builds
(25:52):
up from there. Yeah. And and also so these soap
like masses are not water soluble, meaning they're not dissolved
by water, so they're not gonna over time just like
break up and wash away with the flow of the
sewer water. They just sit there and they build up
and they grow too mescent with new waste and trash
and layers of soapy solids made out of fat, until
(26:14):
somebody finally goes down there to slay the dragon. And
as we discussed, of course the battles of the flushers,
you have to you physically break these things up and
remove them. Yeah, again with things like pick axes and saws,
because it is almost like concrete, you know, it's not
just this big, you know, gross sewer jelly that you
just need to sort of, you know, flush a little
(26:34):
bit more, you know, just spray with water and you
know you'll get it done. A plunger is not going
to do it. Now. In some cases, I do think
these like water jet hoses can be used to cut
it up. They just, at least in the one case
I was reading about, they weren't quite doing the job
and they had to resort to the old ways. Also,
I just wanted to do a little side note on
sepontification because what's happening here in the sewers is not
(26:56):
exactly the same as but it's somewhat analogous to, uh,
something that I'm very interested in that occasionally happens to
human bodies in certain burial conditions. Robert, have you been
to the Mooder Museum in Philadelphia. I haven't. I've never
visited Philly. Yeah, I haven't been, but I've wanted to
for a long time. So they've got an exhibit, or
(27:17):
I don't know about an exhibit. They've got a thing
at the Modern Museum that is a human body. It's
known as the Soap Lady. And do you know the
soap Lady. No, but I'm already horrified because I know
enough about the mood Museum to know that a soap
lady there is going to be a site to behold.
I think they've got a soap lady and a soap man.
I've primarily read about the soap Lady, so those two
(27:38):
should mean exactly. So. It was originally believed that she
was a woman who had lived in Philadelphia in the
eighteenth century and had died of yellow fever sometime in
the seventeen nineties. But in nineteen eighty six they did
some X rays of the body of the Soap Lady
and this revealed that she was wearing clothes with like
buttons and pins that weren't manufactured in the US until
(28:00):
around the eighteen thirties, So it's now believed that she
must have died later than was originally believed, but whenever
she died. In eighteen seventy five, her body was exhumed
from a local cemetery, and it was discovered that the
corpse was encased almost entirely in a solid soap like substance,
and that she was essentially a soap mummy. If you
(28:22):
look at pictures of her, she looks like a mummy.
She looks like some of these uh, like you know,
sort of dried mummified, preserved corpses that you might find
in the case of some of like the Andean mummies.
Um except that she has except that, like her features
are less defined, and she's got a bunch of extra
stuff around the outside of her body, like almost like
(28:44):
she's encased in some kind of concrete or something, but
it's not concrete. This substance in reality is something kind
of like soap. It's not exactly so, but it's something
known as adipus here, also sometimes referred to as corpse
wax or grave wax. Now, I do think I remember
reading about this like years and years past and some
(29:06):
you know texts on decomposition. Uh yeah, there there's some
interesting stories about the role of grave wax in uh in. Like, so,
one thing that corpse wax does when it forms around
a body is that it can help preserve some of
the elements within um. And this like keeps corpses from
decaying like they would normally. And so the formation of
(29:28):
adapas here, I do believe, is it's chemically considered a
form of suppontification, like what's happening with the fat bergs
and the sewers. Adapas are is this waxy substance that
sometimes forms around dead bodies since they decay, particularly in
certain kinds of burial conditions. And these environments tend to
be alkaline, you know, like the the opposite of acidic.
(29:50):
They tend to be anaerobic, meaning without access to air,
and they tend to be warm and moist, which are
just you know that generally sounds like the kind of
environments you don't want to bury bodies. But you know,
some soil is like that. And and and I'm guessing
at least some of these are gonna gonna match up
with with sewer scenarios. And we've talked before about some
(30:10):
of the the organisms that can grow in a sewer
environment that really thrive in a in a like a
low oxygen environment. Yeah, exactly, So freshly formed adipas here
can be kind of soft and waxy, but older adipas
here can more closely resemble something like concrete. I was
reading a Live Science article about this by Wynn Perry,
(30:32):
and the author quotes an anthropologist from North Carolina State
University named Anne Ross, and she says, quote, a lot
of people say it's greasy. I always think of it
like a thick cottage cheese consistency, because it's kind of lumpy. Also,
so maybe not the grave wax of the grave soap,
(30:52):
but the grave cottage cheese, cottage cheese of the dead,
the corpse cheese. Alright, well, on that grotesque note, let's
one more break, and when we come back, we have
some other fatburg facts to roll through, and uh, you know,
maybe we'll talk to us a little bit about about
the sewer monster movies at the end of the episode. Alright,
(31:13):
we're back, Okay, so quite clearly, uh, these things you
don't want fat Bergs in your sewers, and yet they
form in sewers under cities all over the world. It's
happening all the time because of this combination of like
stuff that people shouldn't flush and fats and oils going
down the drain, which I guess both variations of the
same thing. You know, stuff that you shouldn't put down
(31:35):
the drain is going down the drain. Uh. And in
the article I mentioned earlier in New Scientist Kelly Oaks
refers to a University College Dublin professor named Tom Curran
who is who works in this field, and he says
that the major factors contributing to a sort of recent
increase in fatburg incidents in London are of course like
(31:56):
a larger populations in cities, so it's just more people
washing more stuff down rains. Aging sewers contribute a lot.
One factor is more dining out at restaurants, because it
appears that restaurants are responsible for a huge amount of
the fats and oils that go down the drain. You know,
you know, I would have thought it would be more
regulated with the restaurants. Apparently it's Uh. In the UK,
(32:17):
at least it is not as regulated as some people
think it should be or I don't know if that's
changed recently. In the articles I was reading from the
past couple of years, it's I think there's a problem
with like last lack of specificity in regulations, Like there
are regulations that say restaurants aren't supposed to wash anything
down the drain that would be harmful to the sewer system,
(32:38):
but like it doesn't specifically say don't wash fats and
oils down the drain, okay, And then the other big
thing is, of course trashally goes down the drain. But
there's you know, as we've already said, there's like one
huge culprit here that's like of the problem, and it's
wet wipes. It just seems like that one would be
an easier one to knock. It seems like that would
be something we could solve. Is like, if you use
(33:00):
a wet white no matter what you used it for,
no matter how defoul it is, just put it in
a garbage can. Like maybe maybe it's easier because you
go to something you know, you travel to, you know,
to certain parts of the world where the sewer system
can't even handle toilet paper, and you get used to
it you know, like at first it may seem a
(33:21):
little weird, like, oh, you know, I must wipe and
then put the toilet paper into a receptacle. Uh. You know,
it runs against what you've been doing, but you get
used to it and it becomes the new normal. I
didn't even know that was the thing. Oh yeah, I
mean you travel. Um, it just depends on the on
the sewage system. And yes, some just can't handle the paper. Um.
(33:44):
So you know, it's it's it's asking even less I
feel to say, look, just you have a wet wipe.
I know you just used it on some disgusting part
of like a two year old body, but you know
you just put in the garbage. Apparently, so I was
reading in the same article that you know, there are
there are things that have proved effective, and it's essentially
(34:05):
regulating the stuff we're talking about. It's like regulating what
restaurants can put down the drain and putting grease traps
in place and all that, but then also doing like
public education campaigns to get people to not put anything
in the toilet other than human waste and toilet paper,
and that this has been effective and like doubling already.
But it's it hasn't been effective enough everywhere, And I
(34:27):
wonder if the problem is that, I mean, I would
hope that in a campaign against Fatburg, somebody has created,
with practical effects and costuming, an anthropomorphic fat Burg creature,
you know, or even like a you know, like thinking
about when I know we both love good like paranormal
cops ploitation films from years past, like Maniac Cop and
(34:50):
so forth. And there was that cool trailer from what
was it, melt Cop or something. Yeah, like they could
make Fatburg cop and so Fatburg copy. Is this like
anthropomorphic Fatberg in a police uniform that it comes to
your apartment or your restaurant and chastises you for your
destructive ways. Fatberg Cop versus Flukeman the next big crossover hit.
(35:13):
Oh yeah, or they're they're buddy It's a buddy cop.
Oh yeah. Wait, this is making Fatberg's the hero as
you're doing it backwards, one of the fat Burg in
the same way that the Fatburg confronts us Fatburg becomes
the hero, like he's a cop made out of Fatberg,
raising consciousness about the need to destroy his own kind. Well,
no he's not, you know, he's like Uh, he didn't
(35:35):
want to be in fatberg form. You know. Maybe I
don't know, maybe he was previously human. I don't know,
maybe he took on human consciousness. Maybe it's kind of
a you know, a swamp things swampman kind of a scenario.
Why don't they look? But I mean, it can be
hard to get people to behave you know, it's like
it's just usually pretty easy to get away with flushing
(35:57):
and draining things you shouldn't because who's going to catch you?
Something that is momentarily your problem is now just gone,
it's purged, and it becomes instead like a small part
of a big problem that is everybody's problem. It's not
your problem right now, right. And of course this, I
mean there's so many other things, uh, in the world
that can fall into this category. This is the tragedy
(36:18):
of the commons. I mean, it's you know, people have
shared common resources that they all need. The biggest one
probably is like the natural environment. It's you know, supposed
to be something that is of common access to everyone,
but in fact there are individual actors who over exploit
and foul and cause damage to this common resource resource
that should be shared by everybody. Because it's momentarily convenient
(36:42):
for them and they can get away with it. It's
one of the most crucial flaws in human psychology that
we exploit common resources this way and in that way.
I do think we should think about sewers as a
type of commons, just like we would think about like
the oceans, the rivers, the air, the environment. Sewers are
a common shared resource among all the people who use them,
and should be treated as such, even though it's definitely
(37:04):
that kind of thing where we don't want to think
about it and we try not to think about it
unless it's broken. Right. Well, Apparently, when the London Museum
was running this Fatburg exhibit, it had a plaque on
the wall that read as follows the size and foulness
of fat bergs makes them impossible to ignore and reminds
us of our failings that they do. It seems like
something that should be inscribed over like the I don't know,
(37:26):
over over the door of like a Puritan church from
the seventeen hundreds. But I should also point out I
was reading that. Uh, at the same museum exhibit they
sold something called fat burg fudge. I guess this was
in the museum cafe, they'd have to have something like
in the cafe or the gift shot to line up
with it. Literally a sweet treat modeled on a fatburg
(37:48):
brick with raisins to represent flies. You know we mentioned earlier.
You know that, of course London isn't the only city
to have to deal with this. Obviously, there are other
large metropolitan area uh that that are plagued by fat burgs.
And I was reading ant Geo article titled huge Blobs
of Fat and Trash or Filling the World Sewers by
(38:09):
Erica Inglehop, and this was a really nice article as well,
if I remember correctly. The lead UH said that, you know,
in one part of the city, someone flushes a wet wipe,
and another part of the city someone flushes some oil.
When those two meet, a baby fat burg is born.
So I I applaud the the writing in this article.
(38:31):
But angle Hop points out that in New York City,
according to the city's two thousand sixteen State of the
Sewers Report, Greece causes seventy one of sewer backups in
the city. Uh. And then and and as a and
as a result, New York City spends eighteen million spent
eighteen million dollars over a five year period fighting fatburgs.
(38:51):
But even in smaller U. S cities you can see, um,
you know, the local government having to blow like half
a million dollars a year to battle these build ups.
And uh. Another interesting thing that ingle Hop pointed out though,
was that, um, there was a particular River Thames project
with argent Energy uh to potentially harvest fat burgs and
(39:14):
turn them into renewable fuel. And this is pretty sensible
if you think about it. I mean, all that oil
going down the drains, uh, you know, it should be
going somewhere else, such as in the case of restaurants,
into grease traps um which are and and sometimes grease
traps are are pilfered for this very reason because their
contents are valuable in a sense. Uh and and and
(39:35):
there are also parts of the world where you know,
essentially sewer oil is is reclaimed and sort of sold
on the black market, you know, kind like sewer oil.
But I think this has been done with some of
the British fat bergs. I don't think all of them,
I'm I'm not sure, but yeah, I think at some
point some of them have become biofuel. Yeah, I mean,
and it seems like a logical alternative to the typical
(39:58):
fates for a fat burg which are I mean it
if you except for the rare pieces that go to
the museum to become art, uh you know, other stuff,
it's either being hauled off to a landfill or it's
broken up so as to better diffuse into the sewer system. Um.
So yeah, to whatever extent you could. I mean, obviously,
you want to prevent the fat bird to begin with.
You don't want to have to toil with it. Um.
(40:19):
You know, even if you get to the point where
you could send a robot down to battle the fat birds,
it's you still gotta you know, haul it up uh
and all, and then potentially hauled off to a landfill.
But if it could be turned into fuel, if it
could you know, uh, power the Deloreans the future, then
that sounds like the way to go. Well. I do
think it is a good idea to turn these things
as long as they are still being made into fuel.
(40:41):
But don't don't get distracted by that as like an
excuse to Okay, so it's not so bad if we
keep making them because they turn into fuel, right, right.
I mean, because again, the stewer systems are not made
for fat birds. Like if you I guess, if you
reach the situation where you're like, look, we refuse to learn,
we're not gonna stop rushing oil and wet wipes, then okay,
(41:02):
you could conceivably imagine a scenario where the sewer systems
have to be redesigned in order to um, you know,
sequester fat bergs for harvesting. But they're not built like that,
and they're probably not going to be rebuilt like that,
and it's ultimately an easier prospect to just change how
we're handling the things that we're sending down into the sewer.
(41:23):
This is going to become some crack pop political parties
energy platform, and they're saying all this talk about you know,
green energy. What you do is you pour oil down
the drain all day, our energy problems are solved. I'm
not super up on British politics. Is there a fat
bird party? Yet? I know that the new parties get
get formed here and there. Um, I can't heard about it,
(41:44):
but I'm sure. I mean, like all issues, especially issues
in fact that have to do with people exploiting or
ruining the commons for everybody. These issues often do get
like politically polarized because it's advantageous for somebody to do that.
And this is why we need fat bird cop out
there on the beat, in the in the you know,
(42:05):
at least in the eyes of the public, in the messaging, uh,
you know, confronting us, chastising us far aways, um and
and and but I mean, I mean that's seriously because
I think, like, for my part, like one of the
reasons that the other reasons that fat birds are so captivating, uh,
in addition to all the grotesque photos and footage that
(42:25):
shows up. I saw one article is like a video
based article online that the title was something along the
lines of the moment when a rat crawls out of
the fat bird, and that was apparently the footage of
the like a live rat swarming out of fat bird. Um.
You know, so we can't look away from the grotesque
nature of them. But then also you the sewers are
(42:46):
this unique location where there have been a number of
notable films over the years that populate the sewers with monsters,
be it you know, Chud's or or you know or
or or Cannibals is in the Bridge ash film Raw Meat, Well,
I guess that was a subway system, but still an
environment stuff in Ghostbusters too, I think, yeah, the river
of slime flowing out of New York City, that's a
(43:08):
big one for me. But also definitely the Blob at
least remake kind of lot of like uh, you know,
under I think there was like these sewer system Shenanigan's
there with the blob, you know, ripping through the sewer
and attacking people. Yeah, and it definitely came up through
the drains. So it's I feel like the fat Berg
(43:31):
reminds us of these monstrosities as well, except there they're
not fantasy, they're real, uh you know, they just don't
actually assault us, try to digestue well. I feel like
some of these, especially Ghostbusters too. Yeah, it does bring
in some of that same metaphor stuff we were talking
about earlier about you know, like it it's all the
bad things we don't want to think about and all
(43:52):
the negative energies that that is what was feeding the
slime and Ghostbusters too, right, it was like Prince Vigo
and just New Yorkers being jerk. That's kind of weird
for a sequel to a movie in which an e
P A representative was a villain. But there you go.
It's a different time. Ghostbusters a bravely pro littering movie.
(44:16):
Al Right, Well, there you have it. A fat Bergs
for you. Now. Obviously, if anyone out there has direct
experience with fat Bergs or any other strange monstrosities in
our sewer systems, let us know. I feel like, just
thinking about the sheer number of listeners and just all
the you know, the diverse backgrounds that you all have,
somebody out there has had to have battled the fat bird.
(44:39):
We've got a first hand flusher in the audience. I
know it. Yeah, it's just a matter of getting you
to write in and tell us about it. Uh So,
you know, if so, do right in and tell us
about it. And also just if there's some sort of
sewer monster movie that we've failed to reference, uh yeah,
hit us up on that as well. We're always happy
to cha out about movies. And hey, if you're if
(45:00):
you're an artist, maybe you can create uh an image
of fat bird cop because I feel like you'd be
not only amusing us and amusing other listeners, you would
potentially be um, uh you know, saving the world by
introducing this character. In the meantime, if you want to
check out more episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
head on over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
That's where we'll find them all. You'll also find out
(45:21):
links to social media accounts as well as link to
our t shirt store. But ultimately the best thing you
can do to support the show is to just make
sure you you rate and review us wherever you have
the power to do so. Wherever you get this podcast
huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, Tari Harrison.
If you would like to get in touch with us
directly with feedback about this episode or any other, to
(45:43):
tell us about your battles for the fat Berg, to
suggest a topic for the future, to suggest a guest,
or just to say hello, you can email us at
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
(46:03):
to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's
How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. B
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.
Time to go into the Old Vault. This episode originally
aired on June four, nineteen, and it was called The
Soap Dragon. This was about the monsters that we make
in our sewers out of fats, oils, grease, and wet wipes,
all the things you should not put down your drain,
(00:27):
you should not flush, and yet people do a k
a fat Bergs. This was the episode I believe that
gave us fatburg Cop so uh, one of our favorite
recurring characters on the show. So so yeah, let's let's
jump right in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you,
(00:55):
welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is
Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and I thought maybe
we should start off with a little don't do what
Donnie Don't does? All right, tell you tell us about
Donnie Don't. Okay, so let's let's let's see what Donnie
Don't is doing and see if maybe we should don't
do what he does? Uh, try and spot the don't.
So Donnie Don't is he's cooking up a big old
(01:16):
mess of French fries in his deep friar, and he
eats all the fries while watching RoboCop three, and then
it's time to clean up. So first of all, he
realizes he is greasy all over from eating this big
batch of fries, so he gives himself a good wipe
down with some wet wipes, and then he flushes them
down the toilet. Now it's time to get rid of
the gallon of duck fat that he used to cook
his fries. So what does he do? He pours it
(01:38):
straight down the drain in the bathtub. Now, I think
most of us can easily I don't know about all
of us, because somebody's obviously doing what Donnie Don't does,
but I think most of us can easily spot the
Donnie don'ts here. He's made several errors, but now I
think it's pretty common knowledge that you are not supposed
to flush wet wipes and other non toilet page products
(02:00):
down the toilet, and you're definitely not supposed to pour
fat down the drain. Yeah, I mean there's some other
things that he's doing to potentially criticize. I mean, I
don't I don't know how how often he's eating French
fries that have been fried in duck fat. Like, if
he's doing that too often, that's probably not great for
his health. But you know, once in a while, why not, right, Um,
(02:22):
RoboCop three, I have no problem with that. It may
not be the strongest of the RoboCop movies, but it's
uh it has like cyber Ninjes in it. That's kind
of cool. But yeah, it's the it's the wet wipes
and then pouring that grease down the drain. And it's
the pouring of the grease down the drain. I often
forget that. That is a key rule. Oh do you
do you break this one? No? I I just I'm
(02:42):
generally not in a position to break it because we
just don't. We don't cook with with fat uh much
anymore at all anymore. And uh, and then as far
as wet wipes go, like I know, not to put
wet wipes down though, really no oils in your house,
no salad dressing, no like, no olive oil or anything.
But not duck fat. Oh well, I mean, of course,
(03:04):
other like non animal fats are still like fats and oils.
But I guess what I'm thinking, Like I I remember,
so I shouldn't have said just duck fat. I mean
that you're not supposed to pour oil or lipids of
any time down a drain but but but specifically like
the you know, like a big fry vat kind of
drainage situation. Like I I remember seeing jars of of
(03:28):
of fat and oil like underneath the sink. Oh yeah,
growing up, because like that was, you know, the appropriate
thing to do. That's a grandma's house kind of thing,
like the big old mason jar of bacon grease under
the sink. And then of course when whenever we go,
if you go to um a fast food restaurant or
even a restaurant in general, you're gonna find that big
grease trap outside. Like sometimes it's a little bit hidden,
(03:50):
but sometimes there's no place to hide it. It's just
right up front. It's just there in the parking lot. Yeah.
I remember one of my jobs that I worked at
when I is in college. Every morning when i'd go
into it, I'd have to park in the parking lot
of a restaurant that was like next to where I worked,
and I parked right next to their big it was
(04:10):
like a Burger and Fry's place and the heart next
to their big grease grease depository. Uh. And it just
looked like the saddest robot from some Star Wars spinoff,
like Lithuanian Star Wars has our Ford, uh, you know
D seven And it's this big black thing with with
like this dripping, sad, grease tears stained head. But of
(04:34):
course that's this restaurant usage, and we can I think
we can all understand that. I mean, there's certain rules
and regulations there they're following, and they're also producing just
a ton of this, uh, this material. I wonder if
like the problem with a household situation is either you're
creating so little that you don't think about it, so
it's like death by thousand cuts right right, or you know,
when you do produce a more sizeable amount doing you know,
(04:57):
some sort of frying scenario like you do, suddenly have
this this huge mess to clean up. And it's easy
to just convince yourself, I'm just gonna do the easy thing.
I'm just gonna go and put it down the sink
and next time I'll do better. Right, Who's gonna know,
But maybe we should step back and ask a question.
I mean, it's not like RoboCop is going to show
the house, right, right, So that's what they do in
(05:20):
RoboCop too, right. They reprogram him so instead of fighting crime,
he goes out and he he pursues uh, minor infraction,
minor and littering and stuff like that and people using
swear words. Uh. So we should ask this question of
wait a minute, why are you not supposed to do
these things? Why are you not supposed to pour oil
and fat and grease down the drain? Well, one reason
(05:43):
you're not supposed to do this has to do with
the way sewers work. Sewers are, I say, with no hesitation,
one of the greatest human inventions. And if you doubt this,
listen to our invention episodes on the toilet, or listen
to uh we did an episode of stuff to blow
your mind out, the miasma theory of disease. And in
all of these we talk about how you know, properly
(06:05):
maintained sanitary sewer facilities are are not not just there
to make our homes and our streets more pleasant, like
they play a crucial role in protecting public health and
preventing outbreaks of diseases, especially fecal oral route diseases which
are as gross as they sound, diseases like cholera. UH.
Sewers work when everything flows smoothly to its destination point
(06:28):
at a treatment facility, and they're one of the best
innovations in the history of civilization. I say that no
qualifications at all. But sometimes things get in the way,
like tree roots can intrude on sewer pipes and block flow.
We live here in Atlanta where there are a lot
of trees and a lot of a lot of old
large trees and places that are intersecting with sewer pipes,
(06:50):
and so this we know about this happening a lot. UH.
And of course they can cause turbulence and this can
lead to build up. Or we can have old, decaying
sewer mains that crack and do similar stuff. And sometimes
blockages in these sewer sewer pipes occur from the inside out.
One of the most all inspiring things that can block
(07:11):
a sewer is what we're going to be talking about today.
It's something that has in recent years come to be
known as a fat berg. According to an article I
was reading by Kelly oaks and new scientists from earlier
this year. Uh. This term was apparently coined in two
thousand and eight, but it became widely popular after news
reports about a huge fatberg in and what it refers
(07:36):
to is a giant, solidified mass of stuff based on
fats and oils that just states in the heart of
a sewer system, feeding on things like wet wipes and
floss and other trash, but especially on fats and the
byproducts of fats, like cooking oils, you know, uh, grease
(07:57):
from cooking animals, all that stuff that people wash down
the drain when they just either dump out oils they
cook with or just when they wash their dishes and
the oils that are already on the dishes come come
off and go down the down the tubes. Yeah, I
understand that they're like the wet wives, the floss, all
that can can sort of serve as a substrate. Right.
It was like a scaffolding on which this, uh, this
(08:20):
new mass will form. Yeah, and we'll talk about how
it forms in a little bit. But I wanted to
talk about the terminology because while fat bergs has really
caught on with the public, this is like what I
think The reason that there have been so many articles
in recent years about fat bergs is just because of
the term fat bergs, Like there was now this beautiful,
(08:40):
attractive terminology for it, whereas previously, especially in the US,
I think they were referred to primarily with the acronym
fogs for fat oil and grease or frogs for fat
roots as in tree roots and oil and grease. But
have a really missing opportunity there to dug to dub
them for instead of frogs, same letters, but it would
(09:01):
have scratched more of a chudditch, you know, and I
think maybe would have resonated a little more. Maybe not
as much as fat bergs ultimately did, but I mean
attack of the forges where the forges, I feel like
that could have resonated with with the public. If there
is not already a movie about one of these things
becoming sentient, there will be soon. But one particularly massive
(09:23):
fat burg that we might linger on for a bit
has been covered extensively, especially in the British press. This
was the White Chapel Burg. It was removed in Tween
and it was a mass blocking the sewer under the
under White Chapel Road in East London. I think this
was Jack the Rippers neighborhood. Yeah, I think that adds
to the appeal of the white Chapel Fatburg. And it
(09:46):
sounds even more sinister exactly. And the burg itself, in
a way, was sort of a white chapel. It's like this, uh,
this unholy things, sort of a gray off white color.
And so it was about two hundred and fifty meter
ars long or about eight hundred and twenty feet, and
it weighed probably about a hundred and thirty tons. And
(10:07):
this monster was so magnificent that a piece of it
was broken off and displayed in a special exhibit in
the Museum of London. And I came across a gorgeous,
absolutely haunting description of this sewage fatburg fragment by Sam
Knight in The New Yorker. And this, this description of
the Fatburg was so moving that I have to quote
(10:29):
from it. Are you ready, Robert? The piece of Fatburg
was slightly smaller than a loaf of bread and looked
like it might have come from the moon. It was
putty colored and marked everywhere with geological looking indentations, including
a cluster of fingerprints from when it was removed from
a sewer. In East London last October and lifted through
(10:50):
a manhole. On the surface, there was also a dark
fragment from an autumn leaf which must have slipped down
the drains into its mall. Emerging through the congealed cow
alsified fat was the purple and orange perforated edge of
a double decker chocolate bar wrapper. Every detail of the
hideous object was starkly visible because it was resting on
(11:10):
a bed of black granules under a spotlight in a
glass box at the Museum of London at the opening
of its new exhibition Fat Bird. I stared at it
for a while, and while I did so, a tiny
dark speck on the Fat Bird became animate and started
to move. A fly the size of a pinhead flew
(11:31):
up and battered against the glass. That's pretty great because
he capture us this sense of it almost being alive
and uh, and and also this this haunting feeling that
it is like our sins. Uh, may you know, manifested
into a physical form, Like here is all your recklessness
(11:51):
and your you're you're willing and stuff to flush inappropriate
things down the toilet. Well, here it is altogether, uh,
to confront you to point it's grotesque finger at Yeah,
I hope this description of the fatburg it's nominated for
like a Pulitzer Prize. That's uh, it's powerful stuff. But
the seen white chapelberg that mentioned a minute ago was
(12:13):
by no means the only fatburg. Fat Burgs form all
the time in cities all around the world due to
people flushing and washing fats and other inappropriate stuff down
the drain. According to Night's article, it's estimated that London
alone has at least five large fat bergs at any
(12:34):
given time, So sometimes you know, they go down there
to fight them, but they're they're always new ones forming.
So let's talk about size. They can become so huge.
Let me restate what I said a minute ago. This
white Chapel beast was two hundred and fifty meters long,
which is approximately the length of the Hindenburg, and it
(12:54):
weighed probably about a hundred and thirty tons or heavier
by about a third than the biggest ever soarra pod dinosaurs.
Of course, it makes sense because they were talking about
a massive sewage system. We're talking about massive consumption, a
massive population, and therefore the clog the thing is going
(13:14):
to be massive as well, well, yeah, and also you
want to consider the particulars of the London sewer system,
because this is where a lot of these stories come from.
The London sewer system. You know, it's it's got Victorian elements,
and it was the sewer system built over a hundred
years ago, uh, you know, back in Victorian times, as
a response to the great stink you know that we've
talked about on on this show before, where the you know,
(13:37):
sewage being discharged into the Thames. One year in the
believe it is the eighteen fifties or sixties, sometime in
the middle of the nineteenth century, it got so foul
and it stanks so bad that Parliament was just you know,
about to puke in their uh, in their deliberation chambers.
And so they eventually did something about it, and that
was to get this sewage system, uh, not only because
(13:59):
of the smell, but also because it was a you know,
the sewage system that they had in place of the time,
which consisted of more like open sewers in the streets
and stuff draining into the Thames which then people would
drink out of. It was just leading to the collar
out breaks and terrible public health conditions and these horrible stinks.
So they created this massive sewer system under the ground
(14:21):
in order to take away all of the waste water
and discharge it away from the city. So you've got
these like in some cases very large, like old, elaborate
and some sometimes kind of beautiful brick built sewage channels
and you know, access tunnels and all this. Uh so,
so you've got old facilities. But you might be wondering. Okay,
so one of these giant beasts, You've you've got a
(14:43):
hindenburg of fat and sewage and waste stuck in the sewer, blocking,
blocking things, preventing them from flowing. What do you do
about it? Well, that's the question. We're gonna take a
quick break and when we come back we will answer it. Okay,
we're back. So we're talking about fat bergs. How do
(15:03):
you fight them. You've got one of these giant concrete
fat conglomerations made out of wet wipes and and dental
floss and old you know, wrappers of food and bits
of plastic, and of course all of these fats and
oils and grease and sewage and waste. It just makes
this huge mass that blocks up the sewers. What do
(15:24):
you do about it? Well, you literally have sewer workers
that go down to break it up and remove it.
The city sewer workers in London are known as flushers,
and they have to fight these wicked villains. They have
to go down and confront the ball rog in person.
And in Night's article in The New Yorker, he he
talks about the process of breaking up the White Chapel mass. So,
(15:47):
first of all, he says, they've got to wear protection,
and they've got to have a breathing apparatus because this
thing is in a way alive. It's got a lot
of uh life feeding on it, and as a result,
it can let out sudden explosion of gas like hydrogen sulfide,
which of course smells like rotten eggs and is the
It's a common gas released as a byproduct of decaying
(16:07):
organic matter, but it also releases methane, and sometimes it
can just blast out carbon monoxide, which can be deadly.
So let's say you're outfitting your D and D Adventure
the flusher class to go down into this dungeon and
fight the monster. What weapons do you want to equip
them with? We'll probably not fire. Fire would seems like
a bad idea. Oh yeah, that's uh. And and unfortunately
(16:28):
they are not a magic using class, so they don't
have any spells available to them. I don't know. Is
that a thing in D and D there's some classes
who can't do spells, right? Uh? Yeah, I mean it
seems like there are a lot of classes that have
some sort of magical abilities, especially as they level up.
But yeah, this sounds more like like fighter um uh
material right here. You need somebody to go down and
(16:49):
physically fight this physical threat and remove it. These are paladins.
I'll allow it. I'll allow it. I mean, paladins have
some some you know that they have holy powers, et cetera.
But a lot of these powers are about like, you know,
increasing their physical prowess. Right, Okay, certainly I don't know
my stuff. Sorry, Okay, we'll say their paladins anyway. Uh So,
(17:10):
the Mighty Flusher's weapons include the bomb hose. That's the
term bomb hose, which is just like a high pressure
water jet that should be able to cut through blockages.
It's like a cutting jet. But apparently, according to Night's article,
even this didn't work all that well on the hardened
mass of the White Chapelberg, and so later on these
these warriors had to use more old fashioned implements like
(17:33):
pick axes, shovels, and he says in one case even
us Saul. When pieces were removed and kept for the
London Museum exhibit, one expert who handled them described the
fatberg chunks as sort of hard but light feeling like
pumice stone. I think that was interesting. Yeah, but even
(17:53):
the smaller one so so that one's gigantic, But even
the smaller ones are still huge in disgusting ways. I've
on a brilliantly funny article with a great title on
Atlas Obscura by Jessica lee Hester from January of this year,
is called seven big Things. They're smaller than this fatburg,
and it refers to another British fatburg, one found in
(18:14):
a sewer beneath the town in beneath the town in Devon,
and according to the water utility in that area, it
was the largest fatberg that they had come across in
that area. It was about two ten feet or about
sixty five ms uh. And so so what are the
things she lists as smaller than this fatberg, at least
in terms of dimensions. I don't think they had weight
on it at the time she was writing. Um, so
(18:37):
smaller in terms of length was the above water surface
height of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic, the tallest
known Ginko tree in the world, the Christ the Redeemer statue,
and Rio de Jannaro, the Coney's Island or the Coney
Islands Wonder Wheel, uh, the Statue of Liberty, the Roman Colosseum,
(18:59):
and Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square all smaller than this Fatburg,
which is not even the largest Fatburg by a long shot.
And she also pointed out something in in her article
that was just an interesting phrasing of things that it's
sort of echo thoughts I'd been having as I was
reading about Fatburg's in in Hester's words quote, the chunky
(19:20):
gunky sewer cloggers are murky mirrors into the behaviors of
people above ground because they hold all the stuff we
flush and try to forget about, including cooking, grease, napkins, floss,
minstrel products which don't belong in the pipes in the
first place. So it's this idea of like these are
sort of the the places of all the things that
(19:41):
we want to just get out of our lives. It's,
you know, the purging of convenience all becomes this mass. Yeah,
and again it kind of it confronts us once more.
The horror is even greater because it is all it
is a it's it's congealed into this this massive form.
And I think maybe that is part of like the
psychological reason why people can't look away, Like why was
(20:03):
there a museum exhibit about these things where everybody wanted
to go see them? It's this fascinating, uh, you know,
almost kind of freudy and feeling kind of thing, like
the suppressed part of our culture and civilization. It's what's
shoved down and covered up and not looked at, almost
out of a sense of shame, and it becomes this stuff.
(20:24):
And and a lot of our modern life is about
distancing ourselves from the reality of our waste, from the
reality of our dead things of this nature. So so yeah,
I think it's it definitely speaks to us on that level. Okay,
maybe we should turn to the question of how, like
how do simple bits of cooking oil and other fat
turn into these mighty slumbering beasts, the monsters of the
(20:46):
dungeon because it could seem almost magical right that it's
it's it's like this thing has become alive down there.
It is like one of these uh you know, they're
multiple uh uh you know, I think horror properties where
some sort of garbage monster come is alive, and it
basically fulfills the same purpose we're talking about here, to
confront us and to uh, you know, to to show
(21:08):
us the horrors of our of of of our you know,
disposable society. But but there's a very but the process
is happening here is not magical. It is you know,
we can we can we can look at what is
happening chemically. Yeah. Uh so obviously there's one extremely simple
way that there are multiple ways here, but there's one
extremely simple way that fat can end up blocking sewer pipes,
(21:30):
and that's by congealing. Like if you ever cooked bacon,
cooked bacon in a pan, what happens, Well, the white
solid fat in the bacon in the animal flesh renders.
It turns into a fluid that runs around in the
pan like water, and it flows, so you can pour
it out, et cetera. You can pour it down the drain.
But that's only because it's hot. If you take that
(21:50):
bacon grease and you leave it out at room temperature,
you put it in the fridge, we all know what happens, right,
It turns into a kind of waxy solid and this
is large, right. Yeah, I guess the cure process of
bacon doesn't change that. Yeah. So it's pork fat either way. Uh.
And now not all fats can geal into solids or
semi solids at room temperature, but plenty do. So if
(22:11):
you melt this fat and then pour it down the
sink into cold pipes and wash it away, the cooling
fat forms a solid or semi solid mass that can
build up. It can coat surfaces and so forth, and
can of course block sewer pipes. So that that that's
like the simple version. That's just one way fat can
clog up your sewers. That one reason you don't want
(22:33):
to put it down there, right, And I think we
can all grasp that even if if you've ever washed
dishes before, you can get a sense of how, how
what's happening exactly. But this is actually not the main
piece of chemistry contributing to fat bergs. The truth is
actually weirder. Often the fats that we wash down the
drain essentially become soap. The chemical process is known as
(22:55):
saponification uh. This word comes from the Latin sapo, meaning
so And once a mass of fat gets washed down
the drain, it chemically breaks down into fatty acids, and
these fatty acids undergo a chemical reaction in the alkaline
environment of the sewer, combining with other elements and compounds,
often calcium, to form this calcified soap like deposit. And
(23:20):
of course, as we all know, soap can be pretty solid,
like you you don't want to get whacked with a
bar of soap in the bottom of sock. But it
gets even worse because calcified fat bergs build up a
real kind of rigidity. Like the workers who have to
cut them out sometimes compare them to concrete by the
time you have to go in and break them up. Uh.
And I don't know exactly what leads to all that.
(23:42):
It might be this forming of a solid mass and
then like the sort of compacting of time, you know,
thing of pressure just forcing it together. But the soap
like masses tend to form around solid pieces of trash
that get flushed down the toilet. So that's the other
major component we mentioned earlier. Like wet wipes are by
far the worst defender here. This is in all the
(24:03):
British press about this is just saying like, don't wash
fats and oils down the drain and don't flush wet wipes.
Don't flush wet wipes. Wet wipes are like the most
hated thing but the sewer workers. And that's of course
because you know, they're not designed industrially the way like
toilet paper is, which is made to break up when
it's in this aqueous environment. The wet wipes tend to
(24:26):
not break up. They stick together and they form a
sort of binding or substrate for this nightmare soap of
the deep on its way to becoming a berg. I mean,
it makes me think of the of the science stories
we've covered about uh creating artificial Say years we have
some sort of a scaffolding on which you're gonna you're
gonna build up like the you know, the collagen and
(24:48):
create this artificial piece of flesh. It's kind of like
that process taking place in a foul sewer. But imagine
that process is taking place where stuff just keeps flowing
into it, so it just keeps getting more solid material
like wet wipes and more like binding soap like fat
structure until it becomes an ear the size of the Hindenburg.
(25:11):
Another contributor to the fat bergs in the London sewers,
and not just the London sewers in other places, but
especially in London sewers is old rough brick surfaces. I'm
not positive, but I think the mechanism here is that
rough surfaces create more friction with the flowing water, and
this causes turbulence. Instead of flowing smoothly the water or
(25:32):
the you know, the sewage, it gets sort of churned
up and this interrupts the smooth flow and it gives
uh and and so it causes build up of solid matter.
But also I think the rough surfaces just sort of
give the wet wipes and other trash little crags to
catch on, and then of course once they catch on,
other things can catch onto them, and it just builds
(25:52):
up from there. Yeah. And and also so these soap
like masses are not water soluble, meaning they're not dissolved
by water, so they're not gonna over time just like
break up and wash away with the flow of the
sewer water. They just sit there and they build up
and they grow too mescent with new waste and trash
and layers of soapy solids made out of fat, until
(26:14):
somebody finally goes down there to slay the dragon. And
as we discussed, of course the battles of the flushers,
you have to you physically break these things up and
remove them. Yeah, again with things like pick axes and saws,
because it is almost like concrete, you know, it's not
just this big, you know, gross sewer jelly that you
just need to sort of, you know, flush a little
(26:34):
bit more, you know, just spray with water and you
know you'll get it done. A plunger is not going
to do it. Now. In some cases, I do think
these like water jet hoses can be used to cut
it up. They just, at least in the one case
I was reading about, they weren't quite doing the job
and they had to resort to the old ways. Also,
I just wanted to do a little side note on
sepontification because what's happening here in the sewers is not
(26:56):
exactly the same as but it's somewhat analogous to, uh,
something that I'm very interested in that occasionally happens to
human bodies in certain burial conditions. Robert, have you been
to the Mooder Museum in Philadelphia. I haven't. I've never
visited Philly. Yeah, I haven't been, but I've wanted to
for a long time. So they've got an exhibit, or
(27:17):
I don't know about an exhibit. They've got a thing
at the Modern Museum that is a human body. It's
known as the Soap Lady. And do you know the
soap Lady. No, but I'm already horrified because I know
enough about the mood Museum to know that a soap
lady there is going to be a site to behold.
I think they've got a soap lady and a soap man.
I've primarily read about the soap Lady, so those two
(27:38):
should mean exactly. So. It was originally believed that she
was a woman who had lived in Philadelphia in the
eighteenth century and had died of yellow fever sometime in
the seventeen nineties. But in nineteen eighty six they did
some X rays of the body of the Soap Lady
and this revealed that she was wearing clothes with like
buttons and pins that weren't manufactured in the US until
(28:00):
around the eighteen thirties, So it's now believed that she
must have died later than was originally believed, but whenever
she died. In eighteen seventy five, her body was exhumed
from a local cemetery, and it was discovered that the
corpse was encased almost entirely in a solid soap like substance,
and that she was essentially a soap mummy. If you
(28:22):
look at pictures of her, she looks like a mummy.
She looks like some of these uh, like you know,
sort of dried mummified, preserved corpses that you might find
in the case of some of like the Andean mummies.
Um except that she has except that, like her features
are less defined, and she's got a bunch of extra
stuff around the outside of her body, like almost like
(28:44):
she's encased in some kind of concrete or something, but
it's not concrete. This substance in reality is something kind
of like soap. It's not exactly so, but it's something
known as adipus here, also sometimes referred to as corpse
wax or grave wax. Now, I do think I remember
reading about this like years and years past and some
(29:06):
you know texts on decomposition. Uh yeah, there there's some
interesting stories about the role of grave wax in uh in. Like, so,
one thing that corpse wax does when it forms around
a body is that it can help preserve some of
the elements within um. And this like keeps corpses from
decaying like they would normally. And so the formation of
(29:28):
adapas here, I do believe, is it's chemically considered a
form of suppontification, like what's happening with the fat bergs
and the sewers. Adapas are is this waxy substance that
sometimes forms around dead bodies since they decay, particularly in
certain kinds of burial conditions. And these environments tend to
be alkaline, you know, like the the opposite of acidic.
(29:50):
They tend to be anaerobic, meaning without access to air,
and they tend to be warm and moist, which are
just you know that generally sounds like the kind of
environments you don't want to bury bodies. But you know,
some soil is like that. And and and I'm guessing
at least some of these are gonna gonna match up
with with sewer scenarios. And we've talked before about some
(30:10):
of the the organisms that can grow in a sewer
environment that really thrive in a in a like a
low oxygen environment. Yeah, exactly, So freshly formed adipas here
can be kind of soft and waxy, but older adipas
here can more closely resemble something like concrete. I was
reading a Live Science article about this by Wynn Perry,
(30:32):
and the author quotes an anthropologist from North Carolina State
University named Anne Ross, and she says, quote, a lot
of people say it's greasy. I always think of it
like a thick cottage cheese consistency, because it's kind of lumpy. Also,
so maybe not the grave wax of the grave soap,
(30:52):
but the grave cottage cheese, cottage cheese of the dead,
the corpse cheese. Alright, well, on that grotesque note, let's
one more break, and when we come back, we have
some other fatburg facts to roll through, and uh, you know,
maybe we'll talk to us a little bit about about
the sewer monster movies at the end of the episode. Alright,
(31:13):
we're back, Okay, so quite clearly, uh, these things you
don't want fat Bergs in your sewers, and yet they
form in sewers under cities all over the world. It's
happening all the time because of this combination of like
stuff that people shouldn't flush and fats and oils going
down the drain, which I guess both variations of the
same thing. You know, stuff that you shouldn't put down
(31:35):
the drain is going down the drain. Uh. And in
the article I mentioned earlier in New Scientist Kelly Oaks
refers to a University College Dublin professor named Tom Curran
who is who works in this field, and he says
that the major factors contributing to a sort of recent
increase in fatburg incidents in London are of course like
(31:56):
a larger populations in cities, so it's just more people
washing more stuff down rains. Aging sewers contribute a lot.
One factor is more dining out at restaurants, because it
appears that restaurants are responsible for a huge amount of
the fats and oils that go down the drain. You know,
you know, I would have thought it would be more
regulated with the restaurants. Apparently it's Uh. In the UK,
(32:17):
at least it is not as regulated as some people
think it should be or I don't know if that's
changed recently. In the articles I was reading from the
past couple of years, it's I think there's a problem
with like last lack of specificity in regulations, Like there
are regulations that say restaurants aren't supposed to wash anything
down the drain that would be harmful to the sewer system,
(32:38):
but like it doesn't specifically say don't wash fats and
oils down the drain, okay, And then the other big
thing is, of course trashally goes down the drain. But
there's you know, as we've already said, there's like one
huge culprit here that's like of the problem, and it's
wet wipes. It just seems like that one would be
an easier one to knock. It seems like that would
be something we could solve. Is like, if you use
(33:00):
a wet white no matter what you used it for,
no matter how defoul it is, just put it in
a garbage can. Like maybe maybe it's easier because you
go to something you know, you travel to, you know,
to certain parts of the world where the sewer system
can't even handle toilet paper, and you get used to
it you know, like at first it may seem a
(33:21):
little weird, like, oh, you know, I must wipe and
then put the toilet paper into a receptacle. Uh. You know,
it runs against what you've been doing, but you get
used to it and it becomes the new normal. I
didn't even know that was the thing. Oh yeah, I
mean you travel. Um, it just depends on the on
the sewage system. And yes, some just can't handle the paper. Um.
(33:44):
So you know, it's it's it's asking even less I
feel to say, look, just you have a wet wipe.
I know you just used it on some disgusting part
of like a two year old body, but you know
you just put in the garbage. Apparently, so I was
reading in the same article that you know, there are
there are things that have proved effective, and it's essentially
(34:05):
regulating the stuff we're talking about. It's like regulating what
restaurants can put down the drain and putting grease traps
in place and all that, but then also doing like
public education campaigns to get people to not put anything
in the toilet other than human waste and toilet paper,
and that this has been effective and like doubling already.
But it's it hasn't been effective enough everywhere, And I
(34:27):
wonder if the problem is that, I mean, I would
hope that in a campaign against Fatburg, somebody has created,
with practical effects and costuming, an anthropomorphic fat Burg creature,
you know, or even like a you know, like thinking
about when I know we both love good like paranormal
cops ploitation films from years past, like Maniac Cop and
(34:50):
so forth. And there was that cool trailer from what
was it, melt Cop or something. Yeah, like they could
make Fatburg cop and so Fatburg copy. Is this like
anthropomorphic Fatberg in a police uniform that it comes to
your apartment or your restaurant and chastises you for your
destructive ways. Fatberg Cop versus Flukeman the next big crossover hit.
(35:13):
Oh yeah, or they're they're buddy It's a buddy cop.
Oh yeah. Wait, this is making Fatberg's the hero as
you're doing it backwards, one of the fat Burg in
the same way that the Fatburg confronts us Fatburg becomes
the hero, like he's a cop made out of Fatberg,
raising consciousness about the need to destroy his own kind. Well,
no he's not, you know, he's like Uh, he didn't
(35:35):
want to be in fatberg form. You know. Maybe I
don't know, maybe he was previously human. I don't know,
maybe he took on human consciousness. Maybe it's kind of
a you know, a swamp things swampman kind of a scenario.
Why don't they look? But I mean, it can be
hard to get people to behave you know, it's like
it's just usually pretty easy to get away with flushing
(35:57):
and draining things you shouldn't because who's going to catch you?
Something that is momentarily your problem is now just gone,
it's purged, and it becomes instead like a small part
of a big problem that is everybody's problem. It's not
your problem right now, right. And of course this, I
mean there's so many other things, uh, in the world
that can fall into this category. This is the tragedy
(36:18):
of the commons. I mean, it's you know, people have
shared common resources that they all need. The biggest one
probably is like the natural environment. It's you know, supposed
to be something that is of common access to everyone,
but in fact there are individual actors who over exploit
and foul and cause damage to this common resource resource
that should be shared by everybody. Because it's momentarily convenient
(36:42):
for them and they can get away with it. It's
one of the most crucial flaws in human psychology that
we exploit common resources this way and in that way.
I do think we should think about sewers as a
type of commons, just like we would think about like
the oceans, the rivers, the air, the environment. Sewers are
a common shared resource among all the people who use them,
and should be treated as such, even though it's definitely
(37:04):
that kind of thing where we don't want to think
about it and we try not to think about it
unless it's broken. Right. Well, Apparently, when the London Museum
was running this Fatburg exhibit, it had a plaque on
the wall that read as follows the size and foulness
of fat bergs makes them impossible to ignore and reminds
us of our failings that they do. It seems like
something that should be inscribed over like the I don't know,
(37:26):
over over the door of like a Puritan church from
the seventeen hundreds. But I should also point out I
was reading that. Uh, at the same museum exhibit they
sold something called fat burg fudge. I guess this was
in the museum cafe, they'd have to have something like
in the cafe or the gift shot to line up
with it. Literally a sweet treat modeled on a fatburg
(37:48):
brick with raisins to represent flies. You know we mentioned earlier.
You know that, of course London isn't the only city
to have to deal with this. Obviously, there are other
large metropolitan area uh that that are plagued by fat burgs.
And I was reading ant Geo article titled huge Blobs
of Fat and Trash or Filling the World Sewers by
(38:09):
Erica Inglehop, and this was a really nice article as well,
if I remember correctly. The lead UH said that, you know,
in one part of the city, someone flushes a wet wipe,
and another part of the city someone flushes some oil.
When those two meet, a baby fat burg is born.
So I I applaud the the writing in this article.
(38:31):
But angle Hop points out that in New York City,
according to the city's two thousand sixteen State of the
Sewers Report, Greece causes seventy one of sewer backups in
the city. Uh. And then and and as a and
as a result, New York City spends eighteen million spent
eighteen million dollars over a five year period fighting fatburgs.
(38:51):
But even in smaller U. S cities you can see, um,
you know, the local government having to blow like half
a million dollars a year to battle these build ups.
And uh. Another interesting thing that ingle Hop pointed out though,
was that, um, there was a particular River Thames project
with argent Energy uh to potentially harvest fat burgs and
(39:14):
turn them into renewable fuel. And this is pretty sensible
if you think about it. I mean, all that oil
going down the drains, uh, you know, it should be
going somewhere else, such as in the case of restaurants,
into grease traps um which are and and sometimes grease
traps are are pilfered for this very reason because their
contents are valuable in a sense. Uh and and and
(39:35):
there are also parts of the world where you know,
essentially sewer oil is is reclaimed and sort of sold
on the black market, you know, kind like sewer oil.
But I think this has been done with some of
the British fat bergs. I don't think all of them,
I'm I'm not sure, but yeah, I think at some
point some of them have become biofuel. Yeah, I mean,
and it seems like a logical alternative to the typical
(39:58):
fates for a fat burg which are I mean it
if you except for the rare pieces that go to
the museum to become art, uh you know, other stuff,
it's either being hauled off to a landfill or it's
broken up so as to better diffuse into the sewer system. Um.
So yeah, to whatever extent you could. I mean, obviously,
you want to prevent the fat bird to begin with.
You don't want to have to toil with it. Um.
(40:19):
You know, even if you get to the point where
you could send a robot down to battle the fat birds,
it's you still gotta you know, haul it up uh
and all, and then potentially hauled off to a landfill.
But if it could be turned into fuel, if it
could you know, uh, power the Deloreans the future, then
that sounds like the way to go. Well. I do
think it is a good idea to turn these things
as long as they are still being made into fuel.
(40:41):
But don't don't get distracted by that as like an
excuse to Okay, so it's not so bad if we
keep making them because they turn into fuel, right, right.
I mean, because again, the stewer systems are not made
for fat birds. Like if you I guess, if you
reach the situation where you're like, look, we refuse to learn,
we're not gonna stop rushing oil and wet wipes, then okay,
(41:02):
you could conceivably imagine a scenario where the sewer systems
have to be redesigned in order to um, you know,
sequester fat bergs for harvesting. But they're not built like that,
and they're probably not going to be rebuilt like that,
and it's ultimately an easier prospect to just change how
we're handling the things that we're sending down into the sewer.
(41:23):
This is going to become some crack pop political parties
energy platform, and they're saying all this talk about you know,
green energy. What you do is you pour oil down
the drain all day, our energy problems are solved. I'm
not super up on British politics. Is there a fat
bird party? Yet? I know that the new parties get
get formed here and there. Um, I can't heard about it,
(41:44):
but I'm sure. I mean, like all issues, especially issues
in fact that have to do with people exploiting or
ruining the commons for everybody. These issues often do get
like politically polarized because it's advantageous for somebody to do that.
And this is why we need fat bird cop out
there on the beat, in the in the you know,
(42:05):
at least in the eyes of the public, in the messaging, uh,
you know, confronting us, chastising us far aways, um and
and and but I mean, I mean that's seriously because
I think, like, for my part, like one of the
reasons that the other reasons that fat birds are so captivating, uh,
in addition to all the grotesque photos and footage that
(42:25):
shows up. I saw one article is like a video
based article online that the title was something along the
lines of the moment when a rat crawls out of
the fat bird, and that was apparently the footage of
the like a live rat swarming out of fat bird. Um.
You know, so we can't look away from the grotesque
nature of them. But then also you the sewers are
(42:46):
this unique location where there have been a number of
notable films over the years that populate the sewers with monsters,
be it you know, Chud's or or you know or
or or Cannibals is in the Bridge ash film Raw Meat, Well,
I guess that was a subway system, but still an
environment stuff in Ghostbusters too, I think, yeah, the river
of slime flowing out of New York City, that's a
(43:08):
big one for me. But also definitely the Blob at
least remake kind of lot of like uh, you know,
under I think there was like these sewer system Shenanigan's
there with the blob, you know, ripping through the sewer
and attacking people. Yeah, and it definitely came up through
the drains. So it's I feel like the fat Berg
(43:31):
reminds us of these monstrosities as well, except there they're
not fantasy, they're real, uh you know, they just don't
actually assault us, try to digestue well. I feel like
some of these, especially Ghostbusters too. Yeah, it does bring
in some of that same metaphor stuff we were talking
about earlier about you know, like it it's all the
bad things we don't want to think about and all
(43:52):
the negative energies that that is what was feeding the
slime and Ghostbusters too, right, it was like Prince Vigo
and just New Yorkers being jerk. That's kind of weird
for a sequel to a movie in which an e
P A representative was a villain. But there you go.
It's a different time. Ghostbusters a bravely pro littering movie.
(44:16):
Al Right, Well, there you have it. A fat Bergs
for you. Now. Obviously, if anyone out there has direct
experience with fat Bergs or any other strange monstrosities in
our sewer systems, let us know. I feel like, just
thinking about the sheer number of listeners and just all
the you know, the diverse backgrounds that you all have,
somebody out there has had to have battled the fat bird.
(44:39):
We've got a first hand flusher in the audience. I
know it. Yeah, it's just a matter of getting you
to write in and tell us about it. Uh So,
you know, if so, do right in and tell us
about it. And also just if there's some sort of
sewer monster movie that we've failed to reference, uh yeah,
hit us up on that as well. We're always happy
to cha out about movies. And hey, if you're if
(45:00):
you're an artist, maybe you can create uh an image
of fat bird cop because I feel like you'd be
not only amusing us and amusing other listeners, you would
potentially be um, uh you know, saving the world by
introducing this character. In the meantime, if you want to
check out more episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
head on over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
That's where we'll find them all. You'll also find out
(45:21):
links to social media accounts as well as link to
our t shirt store. But ultimately the best thing you
can do to support the show is to just make
sure you you rate and review us wherever you have
the power to do so. Wherever you get this podcast
huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, Tari Harrison.
If you would like to get in touch with us
directly with feedback about this episode or any other, to
(45:43):
tell us about your battles for the fat Berg, to
suggest a topic for the future, to suggest a guest,
or just to say hello, you can email us at
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
(46:03):
to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's
How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. B
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