Ick-factor: London fatberg goes from sewer to museum
London’s newest museum attraction is greasy, smelly — and a glimpse at the hidden underside of urban life.
The Museum of London on Thursday unveiled its latest display, a chunk of a 130-metric-ton (143-U.S.-ton) fatberg that but was blasted out of a city sewer last year.
It took sewage workers with jet hoses nine weeks to dislodge the 250-meter (820-foot) -long mass of oil, fat, diapers and baby wipes from beneath Whitechapel in the city’s East End.
The museum has lovingly preserved a chunk the size of a shoe-box, whose mottled consistency a curator likens to parmesan crossed with moon rock. Close examination reveals the presence of tiny flies. Three nested transparent boxes protect visitors from potentially deadly bacteria, and from the fatberg’s noxious smell.