A waste of a time
THE FIVE BILLION POUND SUPER SEWER BBC2, 9pm
BEWARE of nauseating scenes as this documentary takes us on an expedition to the new super sewer that is being built underneath London.
Hidden below the River Thames are around 4,000 workers constructing the biggest waste pipe in Britain. It will be 23ft wide and 20 miles long, lurking 295ft under the capital. And it’s urgently needed. One of the first statistics we hear is not pleasant – Londoners produce more than a million tonnes of raw sewage every day.
With nowhere for it to go in an outdated Victorian sewer, every week the equivalent of 300 Olympic swimming pools full of sewage overflows into the Thames. Look out for gross shots of loo roll – and other items that you can probably imagine – floating along the water.
To solve the problem this super sewer – a 13-year project that will cost £5billion – will be the biggest upgrade for 150 years.
It’s a fascinating tour as workers race to build the enormous tunnel, on time and on budget.
Cameras have been following them for three years as they work on the first stage, a huge engineering challenge. It’s an unenviable task, but some have worse jobs than others. Nick Fox is one of 45 flushers, those who check for blockages and keep the sewers “No one even knows we’re down here,” he says. “We are in our own quiet little world of poo.” So if you ever have a bad day at work, just think of the people busying away, working to stop us drowning in our own waste.