--- title: London Sewer Wrecked by 11 Tons of Congealed Fat Dubbed 'Fatberg' description: It inflicted more than a half-million dollars of damage to the sewer pipes under West London’s plush Chelsea neighborhood. canonical: https://time.com/3832561/fatberg-congealed-fat-london/ author: David Stout article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-23T08:25:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:19:01.820Z og:title: Stinking 11-Ton 'Fatberg' Removed from London Sewer og:description: The megalith of congealed fat was the size of a double-decker bus og:url: https://time.com/3832561/fatberg-congealed-fat-london/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Stinking 11-Ton 'Fatberg' Removed from London Sewer twitter:description: The megalith of congealed fat was the size of a double-decker bus twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # A Stinking 11-Ton Megalith of Congealed Fat Has Been Removed From a London Sewer by [David Stout](https://time.com/author/david-stout/) ## David Stout Apr 23, 2015 8:25 AM UTC by [David Stout](https://time.com/author/david-stout/) ## David Stout Apr 23, 2015 8:25 AM UTC Londoners have been advised to stop flushing cooking oil and pre-moistened towelettes down sinks after authorities successfully removed a mammoth 11-ton piece of congealed fat, caked with compacted wet wipes, from one of the city’s sewers. The “fatberg” was reportedly the size of one of the British capital’s famed double-decker buses and inflicted more than a half-million dollars of damage to the sewer pipes under West London’s plush Chelsea neighborhood. “The original sewer has been so badly abused by fat being chucked down the plughole we’ve had to opt for the time-consuming and disruptive option of replacing many meters of pipe,” Stephen Hunt, a maintenance supervisor at Thames Water charged with overseeing the removal of fatberg, [told the _Guardian_](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/21/huge-10-ton-fatberg-removed-chelsea-sewer-london). West London is home to a high-concentration of restaurants and food-related enterprises that produce approximately 32 million to 44 million liters of used cooking oil, much of which is then flushed down the drains, annually. “I’d urge people to consider what lurks beneath their feet,” pleaded Hunt. “When it comes to getting rid of fat, ‘bin it – don’t block it.’” The same, naturally, goes for wet wipes. \[[_Guardian_](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/21/huge-10-ton-fatberg-removed-chelsea-sewer-london)\] London Sewer Wrecked by 11 Tons of Congealed Fat Dubbed 'Fatberg' ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3832561/fatberg-congealed-fat-london/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3832561/fatberg-congealed-fat-london/"},"headline":"A Stinking 11-Ton Megalith of Congealed Fat Has Been Removed From a London Sewer","datePublished":"2015-04-23T08:25:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:19:01.820Z","description":"It’s called a fatberg and it’s terrifying","url":"https://time.com/3832561/fatberg-congealed-fat-london/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Britain","Bizarre","london"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"David Stout","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/david-stout/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3832561/fatberg-congealed-fat-london/","name":"A Stinking 11-Ton Megalith of Congealed Fat Has Been Removed From a London Sewer"}}]}] ```