00:00The announcement from Thameswater comes just weeks after the Port of London Authority local environment group Thames 21 and Thameswater collaborated to remove a bank of wet wipes that had settled and congealed into sludge on a curve of the River Thames by Hammersmith Bridge.
00:29Overall, it seems wet wipes are the main issue here. The blockage in Feltham was estimated to weigh a staggering 100 tonnes, the equivalent weight of eight double-decker buses, and consisted mainly of wet wipes held together by fat, oil and grease. It took Thameswater a month to clear this blockage.
00:56The specialist team had to access the sewer through a large manhole chamber equipped with gas monitors for safety before blasting, chiselling and sucking the blockage out from the 125 metres of pike.
01:12The waste was then craned into skips and taken to landfill. Thameswater is calling on members of the public to avoid flushing wet wipes and waste other than toilet paper.
01:24The company said it clears 75,000 blockages a year, often caused by wet wipes, and removes some 3.8 million wet wipes annually in operations that cost £18 million.
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