Largest fatberg

The largest reported fatberg measured 250 m (820 ft) long and weighed an estimated 130 tonnes (286,601 lb), according to inspectors from Thames Water (UK), who encountered the blockage in a sewage pipe in London's Whitechapel area in September 2017. A fatberg is an agglomeration of congealed fat, cooking oil, nappies, wet wipes and other personal hygiene products flushed down the toilet that causes a blockage in sewage systems. This fatberg is the largest to be documented and reported by a water authority.

London is particularly prone to fatbergs owning to long tracts of Victorian-era sewer. Other recent fatbergs – a portmaneau word from fat and iceberg, accepted by the Oxford English Dictionary in 2015 – include an 80-m-long (260-ft) blockage in London's Shepherd's Bush area in 2014 and a 40-m-long (131-ft) berg in the sewers of Chelsea in 2015. In Australia, Melbourne's sewers were blocked in September 2014 by a fatberg blamed largely on flushed sanitary products and faulty grease traps in fast-food restaurants.