Flip It & Toss It, But Don’t Pour It!

03 March 2014 16:37

It’s Pancake Tuesday tomorrow, and NI Water is calling on all pancake experts to ensure that after they flip and toss their pancakes, they don’t pour the remaining Fat, Oil and Grease (FOG) down the sink.  

Our sewers have been put on a diet from Christmas, are trying to stay ‘skinny’ and avoid being clogged up with a nasty ‘fatberg’. It is easy to simply pour the excess FOG down the sink, and think ‘what harm can it do’?, when in actual fact, it is causing chaos for NI Water as it can cause major blockages in the sewer line.

Gavin McCready, NI Water’s FOG expert appeals to pancake flippers to pay close attention to the disposal of their FOG:

“As fat, oil and grease cools, it solidifies; creating blockages in the sewerage system, which often result in raw sewage flooding gardens and homes.  The effects of this can be devastating for you and your neighbours and costs NI Water thousands of pounds per year to clear the blockages that occur.”  

“Everyone remembers the giant ‘fatberg’ found in London sewers which took weeks to clear. As interesting as this was, we have no desire to have one of our own and we are appealing to our customers not to pour their FOG from their pancake pans down the sink.”

One way to dispose of FOG is to let it cool and solidify, and then scrape it into the rubbish bin.  The wastewater drain which runs from each house is just 4 inches wide and only designed for human waste and toilet roll.

You can view first hand the damage FOG can cause to our sewers by viewing the following video on Youtube www.youtube.com/northernirelandwater.