Getting ready to go with the flow
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, around 4,000 workers attempting to build the biggest sewer in Britain’s history. It will be seven metres wide and a whopping 20 miles long, lurking 90m 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With nowhere for it to go in an outdated Victorian sewer, every week the equivalent of 300 Olympic swimming pools full of sewage (or 39 tonnes) overflows into the Thames.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 £5 billion, 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 workers for three years as they complete 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 running: “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 thousands busying away, working to stop us drowning in our own waste.