Burning fat: Buses can now be powered with fat found in London's sewers

(Web Desk) – Sewers in London have a silent growing threat to human health. The cooking fats and grease used at home, that are slanted down the kitchen sinks, end up merging with solids that are already present in the sewers forming giant lumps of solid fat. They are sometimes as big as a size of a car, sometimes hundreds of meters long.

According to the Independent, there was media frenzy when the pictures of London’s sewers emerged. The most extreme form of these fats that caused serious damages was termed as ‘fatbergs’ due to its gigantic size. It took workers eight hours to unblock an entire sewer in Cheltenham, in south west of UK.

These fatbergs are a huge problem when they are found in older systems, such as the 1940s- era sewers.

A worker at Thames Water holding a fatberg removed from the sewer. Photo: Getty Images

The entire sewer was replaced when a vast 10-tonne fatberg the size of a London bus led to the replacement of 100 feet of tunnels, costing Thames Water 400,000 British Pounds.

These destructive fat slobs are now becoming an advantageous product for the utility companies. They have found a way to reprocess and convert it to be used as biodiesel.

Argent Energy has started turning fatbergs from waste water facilities around the UK into a biodiesel. The end product that can be used for a variety of purposes is a clear yellow liquid which is an industry standard biodiesel.

Water pipe fat can be turned into fuel that is more environmentally sound than plant-based alternatives. Photo: Thames Water

Around 24 to 40 per cent of the fatberg that enters the energy plant is turned into fuel which is more environmentally friendly than regular diesel and biodiesel from sources such as palm oil.

The UK Government has settled on a position that while science is not exact, fuels extracted from the waste such as the fatbergs should be encouraged more than those extracted from crops.

Roughly 24 to 40 per cent of an original untreated fatberg that enters the Argent Energy plant is turned into biodiesel. Photo: The Independent

“It is significantly better in terms of preventing CO2 emissions, being waste-based rather than a crop-based biofuel,” says Dickon Posnett, director of corporate affairs at Argent Energy.

The UK’s biggest bus company, Stagecoach, uses a 30 per cent biofuel blend in 85 per cent of its fleet. In 2007 it introduced Britain’s first biofuel buses in Kilmarnock, allowing customers to exchange used cooking oil for travel discounts. Photo: The Independent

Postnett added, “While we’re doing a lot of work on further improving the environmental benefits of biofuels, more and more buses and trucks are of the Euro VI [EU emissions] standard.

These make a huge improvement on tailpipe emissions, eliminating 95-98 per cent of them. We’re going to have diesel heavy duty vehicles around for decades to come so with these kind of results and the greenhouse gas savings, we may as well get as much renewable biodiesel in them as possible”.

Thames Water states that sanitary towels, kitchen rolls, dental floss, nappies and tights are all high up on the list of disposed products that are on the list of fatberg’s ingredients.

“As well as not flushing non-flushable items, we also urge customers not to pour fats, oils or greases down the drain or sink. Contrary to the myth, running the hot tap and using washing up liquid doesn’t help prevent blockages,” stated Thames Water.

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