After reading the article, be interesting to see an academic study exhaustively cataloguing the chemical compounds found in sewer systems that might be possible mining targets and issues to deal with.
"We took 1000 samples from the sewers at various locations, at 1/10 gallon increments, 100 gallons total, and found: H2S, H2SO4, HS⁻, S²⁻, NH3, CH4, CO2, CHCl3, CH3Cl, CCl2F2, C6H4Cl2, C2H6O, CH2Cl2, C5H12, C3H8, C2Cl4, C2HCl3, C6H5CH3, C8H10, PO4-P, H5P3O10, H3PO4, PO3−, and C10H15N5O10P2 of #% and ug/m3 in gaseous, liquid, solid forms. Percentage of low degradability human products (wipes, tampons, plastic bags, wrappers) were #%, ug/m3. Percentages of oil / grease / and solidified food waste were #%, ug/m3."
I talked to a woman who worked for the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power (LADWP) at a party once and she told me about some of the things they find in the sewers. The ones I remember are tampons, a dead horse, and money.
I spent the first six months of my apprenticeship working in lift stations ("lift" poop up every mile or so, so gravity can keep sludge moving").
The item missing from the article that disgusted me most was the massive amount of tampons which found themselves ejected from the semi-solid pumps. From afar, they appear to be a moat of dead mice. It was literally somebody's job to shovel these up, as nothing more than routine.
It's a classic problem of externalized consequences. But with the added challenge that the action happens in a very private place.
Also, this tends to be a topic where the actor has a dramatically negative interest in suggestions from the person who will have to deal with the problem.
Nevertheless, septic fields cost $20-30K, and municipal sewer management is also very expensive.
Aside (but not far): Someone should honestly bring litigation against the wipes that call themselves flushable.
There is no such product, despite many such packaging claims.
>the person who will have to deal with the problem
Plumbers will always have work, but there may be environmental consequences in the interim:
I renovated a small garage apartment, located in the wealthiest part of town (Lookout Mountain). The property had been owned by the same family since the 1930s, and was home of the same heir since the early 1990s (until renovated ~2022).
After the historic toilet/flange rusted out, Heir lived their for another thirty years squatting into a hole that dropped down into a bucket (in the garage, below). He would then run off into the forest to dump the poop, once festidiously heaping. As he aged, the loads got smaller and smaller (until one day he just decided to stop emptying it, until quickly thereafter Going Home, thank god / RIP).
Millions and millions of dollars in neighboring properties, and this legacy of the mountain was contributing his own surface run-off into Poopy Falls' tributaries (Ruby Falls, which is an underground waterfall made up of recycled septic field line water of the affluent mountaintop community, above). Just a surface stream of solid effluent / shit.
>Nevertheless, septic fields cost $20-30K
That's if you're under ideal conditions. Some situations (e.g. hillside) can quickly approach $100k+.
This requires a PSA, not internet comments. And honestly, I imagine people are willing to pay the extra maintenance dollars to not have to take that extra step. We all appreciate some kind of convenience.
Maybe I have a particularly florid imagination, but it's hard to believe that tampons would be the most digusting thing found in sewers. I mean, they rank far below even just fecal matter on the icky scale.
My anticipation for shock and & are for clicking this thread is so far not met.
Poop doesn't really exist very long. Neither does toilet paper. Mostly, it amalgamates into "sludge."
Tampons don't succumb to the namesake maserators, and are instead ejected (there is a foreign debris port for anything that doesn't drip out centrifugally).
Within the darker corners of sewerlines you find the fat plaques, which are disgusting (but pass through the pumps in smaller pieces). But...
Tampons everywhere. There's even moats to catch 'em all.
There are surprisingly few YouTubers down in the sewers but if you look you’ll find them.
The best is some guy in Czechia who routinely explores the vast trunk sewers under Brno, Prague and others. Often times he will visit during a rain storm and watch the combined sewer overflows do their thing. It gets pretty wild down there!
Up until about a year ago it was all in Czech but recently he has been adding English subtitles as well, which are very informative. The dude clearly does a lot of homework before visiting.
And one of my personal favorites is this absolutely massive CSO which somehow has a plaque memorializing some civil engineer on one of the walls: https://youtu.be/5LVlj-6qwZU?si=lwMdKgVrA7BRuvt2
I highly recommend browsing the channel because there are plenty of videos of him exploring deep sewer tunnels and stuff. Channel: https://youtube.com/@kanalismus35
The other guy I’ll watch goes under London. Not nearly as much content but the “artisan brickwork” down in older London sewers cannot be beat.
There are quite a few who work specifically at unblocking the sewers (and a lot in Australia for some reason). Mostly they find tree roots but tampons and wipes are the other major culprits that they have to remove. These plus the roots are a bad combination.
I might have to watch the London one - my mind was blown a few years ago to learn that in the Fleet River sewer (storm drain really) you can still see the barge mooring rings from before the river was paved over in the mid-1700s.
Absolute favorite of a B movie, and today something of a historical gem too, showing a grimy, grim Manhattan underworld (literally) that's long gone, or at least more hidden than ever.
After reading the article, be interesting to see an academic study exhaustively cataloguing the chemical compounds found in sewer systems that might be possible mining targets and issues to deal with.
"We took 1000 samples from the sewers at various locations, at 1/10 gallon increments, 100 gallons total, and found: H2S, H2SO4, HS⁻, S²⁻, NH3, CH4, CO2, CHCl3, CH3Cl, CCl2F2, C6H4Cl2, C2H6O, CH2Cl2, C5H12, C3H8, C2Cl4, C2HCl3, C6H5CH3, C8H10, PO4-P, H5P3O10, H3PO4, PO3−, and C10H15N5O10P2 of #% and ug/m3 in gaseous, liquid, solid forms. Percentage of low degradability human products (wipes, tampons, plastic bags, wrappers) were #%, ug/m3. Percentages of oil / grease / and solidified food waste were #%, ug/m3."
There's a few papers on a quick search:
Sulphur: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
VOCs: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03043...
Phosphorous: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22133...
If you are in Paris you can visit the sewers (https://musee-egouts.paris.fr/en/). It is surprisingly entertaining.
I talked to a woman who worked for the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power (LADWP) at a party once and she told me about some of the things they find in the sewers. The ones I remember are tampons, a dead horse, and money.
I spent the first six months of my apprenticeship working in lift stations ("lift" poop up every mile or so, so gravity can keep sludge moving").
The item missing from the article that disgusted me most was the massive amount of tampons which found themselves ejected from the semi-solid pumps. From afar, they appear to be a moat of dead mice. It was literally somebody's job to shovel these up, as nothing more than routine.
Who is still tossing these/trash into toilets?
I believe a lot of them still says “flushable”, even though the plumber disagrees.
> Who is still tossing these/trash into toilets?
Most women who use them? Sit down, pull it out, drop it, flush. It's the easiest thing.
Please use (or provide) the little trashcan that ought'ta sit next to any toilet.
This "simple" action far exceeds half of sewage maintenance budgets.
Only flush TP, liquids, and poop — does not matter if sewer / septic.
Src: former sewer pump repair guy; have had a $eptic $ystem ruined by gue$t tampon$.
It's a classic problem of externalized consequences. But with the added challenge that the action happens in a very private place.
Also, this tends to be a topic where the actor has a dramatically negative interest in suggestions from the person who will have to deal with the problem.
Nevertheless, septic fields cost $20-30K, and municipal sewer management is also very expensive.
Aside (but not far): Someone should honestly bring litigation against the wipes that call themselves flushable.
>wipes that call themselves flushable
There is no such product, despite many such packaging claims.
>the person who will have to deal with the problem
Plumbers will always have work, but there may be environmental consequences in the interim:
I renovated a small garage apartment, located in the wealthiest part of town (Lookout Mountain). The property had been owned by the same family since the 1930s, and was home of the same heir since the early 1990s (until renovated ~2022).
After the historic toilet/flange rusted out, Heir lived their for another thirty years squatting into a hole that dropped down into a bucket (in the garage, below). He would then run off into the forest to dump the poop, once festidiously heaping. As he aged, the loads got smaller and smaller (until one day he just decided to stop emptying it, until quickly thereafter Going Home, thank god / RIP).
Millions and millions of dollars in neighboring properties, and this legacy of the mountain was contributing his own surface run-off into Poopy Falls' tributaries (Ruby Falls, which is an underground waterfall made up of recycled septic field line water of the affluent mountaintop community, above). Just a surface stream of solid effluent / shit.
>Nevertheless, septic fields cost $20-30K
That's if you're under ideal conditions. Some situations (e.g. hillside) can quickly approach $100k+.
This requires a PSA, not internet comments. And honestly, I imagine people are willing to pay the extra maintenance dollars to not have to take that extra step. We all appreciate some kind of convenience.
No.
Sometimes they just fall out.
... and if that were the scale of the problem, it would not be one. :)
Maybe I have a particularly florid imagination, but it's hard to believe that tampons would be the most digusting thing found in sewers. I mean, they rank far below even just fecal matter on the icky scale.
My anticipation for shock and & are for clicking this thread is so far not met.
Poop doesn't really exist very long. Neither does toilet paper. Mostly, it amalgamates into "sludge."
Tampons don't succumb to the namesake maserators, and are instead ejected (there is a foreign debris port for anything that doesn't drip out centrifugally).
Within the darker corners of sewerlines you find the fat plaques, which are disgusting (but pass through the pumps in smaller pieces). But...
Tampons everywhere. There's even moats to catch 'em all.
Here in Zürich? Mostly cocaine...
https://www.eawag.ch/en/info/portal/news/news-detail/drugs-a...
There are surprisingly few YouTubers down in the sewers but if you look you’ll find them.
The best is some guy in Czechia who routinely explores the vast trunk sewers under Brno, Prague and others. Often times he will visit during a rain storm and watch the combined sewer overflows do their thing. It gets pretty wild down there!
Up until about a year ago it was all in Czech but recently he has been adding English subtitles as well, which are very informative. The dude clearly does a lot of homework before visiting.
Examples: https://youtu.be/GQtzYgH8buc?si=IldzL7KEEhdObjtJ
https://youtu.be/ZUwXZbkEXWE?si=UmzGMbHXSQAt6hjx
And one of my personal favorites is this absolutely massive CSO which somehow has a plaque memorializing some civil engineer on one of the walls: https://youtu.be/5LVlj-6qwZU?si=lwMdKgVrA7BRuvt2
I highly recommend browsing the channel because there are plenty of videos of him exploring deep sewer tunnels and stuff. Channel: https://youtube.com/@kanalismus35
The other guy I’ll watch goes under London. Not nearly as much content but the “artisan brickwork” down in older London sewers cannot be beat.
https://youtube.com/@valdigger
You’ll occasionally find videos of people going into storm drains and tunnels but those aren’t nearly as interesting in my opinion.
There are quite a few who work specifically at unblocking the sewers (and a lot in Australia for some reason). Mostly they find tree roots but tampons and wipes are the other major culprits that they have to remove. These plus the roots are a bad combination.
I might have to watch the London one - my mind was blown a few years ago to learn that in the Fleet River sewer (storm drain really) you can still see the barge mooring rings from before the river was paved over in the mid-1700s.
I was slightly hoping this was a piece about ninja turtles.
Try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.H.U.D. instead.
Absolute favorite of a B movie, and today something of a historical gem too, showing a grimy, grim Manhattan underworld (literally) that's long gone, or at least more hidden than ever.
This was a really fascinating read.
what you get out of it, depends on what you put into it
Don't miss footnote 5
The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crinoline as early porta potty :>
It