On Friday, 8 May 2020 20:13:12 UTC+1, alan_m wrote:
On 08/05/2020 09:08, John wrote:
I watched an excellent programme about the work of the Water Board in
clearing drains and sewers - a huge fatburg was a big task.

It got me wondering - could they install a "fat separator" and then
increase the Water Charges to the busines that casues the problem?

I rather got the impression that they were just going to accept they would
have to come back and clean it again. No sign that they were addressing the
cause. Does anyone know different?

Isn't the bigger problem with the formation of fat burgs the number of
wet wipes that people continue to flush down the toilets. These can act
as a binding agent for the fat.

The basic problem seems to be the usual one: stupidity.

Assuming that just because something can, physically, be flushed, it should be flushed - and that it is OK to do so.

Add in the commercial side, promoting wet wipe use all the time. And packaging that doesn't say "DO NOT FLUSH" in big ltters. And lack of product regulation that has allowed their sale to flourish without imposing any sort of degradability.

Next issue: disposable gloves being flushed. (Already seeing vast numbers alongside paths, outside supermarkets, etc.) These gloves have the extra advantage of potentially trapping air and semi-floating.