Retirement town’s ‘false teeth fatberg’

RETIREES’ discarded false teeth and incontinence pads helped to form an enormous fatberg longer than the Tower of pisa, it emerged yesterday.

scientists had feared the 209ft blockage clogging sewers in sidmouth, Devon, contained harmful chemicals, hazardous bugs and banned microplastic beads. However, experts found its contents ‘reflected the ageing population’ of the retirement resort.

The fatberg, which was discovered under The esplanade in the seaside town, is thought to have taken two years to form. it took 36 tanker trucks, each with a 3,000-gallon capacity, to remove the congealed mass over eight weeks at the end of 2018. The monster blob was then fed into an ‘anaerobic digester’ machine which broke it down while generating electric power in the process.

exeter university scientists analysed four 22lb samples of the huge, smelly mass.

synthetic biology expert professor John Love, who led the project, said: ‘We worried that the fatberg might concentrate fatsoluble chemicals such as those found in contraceptives, contain now-banned microplastic beads from cosmetics and be rich in potentially pathogenic microbes, but we found no trace of these possible dangers.

‘We were all rather surprised to find that this fatberg was simply a lump of fat aggregated with wet wipes, sanitary towels and other household products that really should be put in the bin and not down the toilet.’

Andrew roantree, from south West Water, added: ‘Although we deal with around 8,500 blocked sewers every year, the sidmouth fatberg was by far the largest discovered in our service history.

‘The results confirm our suspicions – that fat and non-flushable products such as wipes are the main culprits.’