fatberg toronto

Disgusting ball of grease and dirty diapers found along Toronto's waterfront

A truly nasty combination of fat, grease and wastewater materials has appeared in the waters off Toronto's shoreline and some people are very excited about it.

The University of Toronto's trash team recently found a fatberg inside one of the trash traps installed in Lake Ontario and were super excited to share the news.

What is a fatberg you ask? Very important question.

According to Dr. Chelsea Rochman, part of the university's trash team, a fatberg is basically a congealed mess of either butter, bacon grease or cooking oil and toilet paper or wetwipes (and other un-flushable items).

This happens when oil and fat are dumped down the drain (which you are never supposed to do) and congeals with the materials in our wastewater.

These substances all mixe together and turns into a new object, however disgusting.

Rochman was thrilled to encounter a fatberg in real life for the first time after having read about them multiple times.

Because the team inspected the trash trap after a storm, there were elevated levels of human waste, hence the finding of the rare fatberg.

This one kind of looked like a piece of dry coral — but I'm betting it didn't smell like one.

Fatbergs can actually cause tons of damages to pipes as they become incredibly hard and essentially block them up completely.

This is exactly what happened in London, England, back in 2017 when a 130-ton fatberg clogged sewer lines. It took weeks to dispose of the clog.

So here is your warning: please remember not to flush wet or makeup wipes, condoms, tampons, dirty diapers or anything else other than toilet paper. Even if wipes say they're flushable, they aren't.

Lead photo by

What About Water?


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