What caused the Great Stink of 1858 in London?
The Great Stink was an event in Central London in July and August 1858 during which the hot weather exacerbated the smell of untreated human waste and industrial effluent that was present on the banks of the River Thames.
Did the Great Stink cause cholera?
From 1831 London suffered a series of cholera outbreaks. At the time, the inhalation of ‘foul air’ was widely thought to be responsible for the spread of this dreaded disease. Many blamed the fetid smell that hung over the River Thames – by this time little more than an enormous sewer.
What was the sewage situation in London?
London’s 150 year old sewage system is today struggling under the strain of the city’s ever increasing population – now nearly 9 million. Millions of tons of raw sewage still spills untreated into the Thames each year, especially after extreme weather.
What did Sir Joseph Bazalgette do to end the cholera epidemic?
As chief engineer of London’s Metropolitan Board of Works, his major achievement was the creation (in response to the Great Stink of 1858) of a sewerage system for central London which was instrumental in relieving the city from cholera epidemics, while beginning to clean the River Thames.
How did parliament stop the great stink?
The government’s response during the early days of the stink was to douse the curtains of the Houses of Parliament in chloride of lime, before embarking on a final desperate measure to cure lousy old Father Thames by pouring chalk lime, chloride of lime and carbolic acid directly into the water.
How did the River Thames get cleaned?
It was decided that ‘Treatment plants’ should be built to clean the water from the Thames before it was pumped to homes. The treatment plants also cleaned dirty water from homes before it went back into the Thames. Not only did the people’s health improve but also the water in the Thames became cleaner.
Where does toilet waste go UK?
Whenever you flush the toilet or empty the sink, the wastewater goes down the drain and into a pipe, which takes it to a larger sewer pipe under the road. The sewer then joins our network of other sewers and takes the wastewater to a sewage treatment works.
How much money did the government give bazalgette?
Joseph William Bazalgette was the Chief Engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works, and had been hired specifically to take charge of the new sewers. The cost would be enormous. Parliament initially offered £2.5 million, somewhere between £240 million and over a billion pounds in today’s values.
How dirty is Thames?
The River Thames has some of the highest recorded levels of microplastics for any river in the world. Scientists have estimated that 94,000 microplastics per second flow down the river in places.