waste from london’s toilets sinks and
gutters is carried away by a network of
interconnecting ever larger pipes
designed and built by sewage superstar
and pioneer Joseph Basel jet
it all ends up here a sewage treatment
works
this is Becton sewage treatment works in
the east of London and it’s Europe’s
biggest it was originally part of Joseph
Bazalgette scheme but I tell you what
sewage treatment has really moved on
since his day in the 19th century sewage
was simply stored here in tanks then
pumped out to the river at high tide so
you’ll be pleased to know today’s
process is a lot more refined and takes
just four hours for raw sewage to be
clean enough to return to the river
every day this treatment works handles
the sewage from 3.4 million Londoners
and that’s an astonishing volume it
equates to 34 Olympic swimming pools
every hour so how does it treat the
byproducts of our late-night sessions
and trips to the local curry house the
first process happens here at the inlet
works using these screens large loves
like bricks wood rags a rake belt once
collected these large objects will all
be washed and sent to a landfill sites
nearby they’ve even had half a car here
meanwhile the remaining sewage passes on
to the next part of the process into
these primary settlement tanks now very
basically it enters at that end and
flows relatively slowly this way over
the top of each tank is a moving bridge
which has two blades to remove a solid
organic material from the sewage the top
blade skims scum from the surface while
a second submerged blade dredges the
heavier settled sludge from the bottom
of the tank all this solid sludge is
then sent for further processing the
remaining sewage then flows down this
way towards the secondary biological
treatment process and here it is in
these tanks the sewage is mixed in with
billions upon billions of bacteria so
all the dissolved materials that still
remain can be by degraded and pumping
air from below at very high pressures
causes the sewage to be saturated with
dissolved oxygen and this accelerates
the biological breakdown
brilliance finally the treated effluent
is tested to ensure it’s clean enough to
go back into the Thames meanwhile
remember all of the solids which was
skimmed off earlier they’re taken to a
processing plant these sludges are
brought to this filter press where it’s
be watered
and the resulting sludge cake is
incinerated and that provides 75% of
this entire works power needs
gutters is carried away by a network of
interconnecting ever larger pipes
designed and built by sewage superstar
and pioneer Joseph Basel jet
it all ends up here a sewage treatment
works
this is Becton sewage treatment works in
the east of London and it’s Europe’s
biggest it was originally part of Joseph
Bazalgette scheme but I tell you what
sewage treatment has really moved on
since his day in the 19th century sewage
was simply stored here in tanks then
pumped out to the river at high tide so
you’ll be pleased to know today’s
process is a lot more refined and takes
just four hours for raw sewage to be
clean enough to return to the river
every day this treatment works handles
the sewage from 3.4 million Londoners
and that’s an astonishing volume it
equates to 34 Olympic swimming pools
every hour so how does it treat the
byproducts of our late-night sessions
and trips to the local curry house the
first process happens here at the inlet
works using these screens large loves
like bricks wood rags a rake belt once
collected these large objects will all
be washed and sent to a landfill sites
nearby they’ve even had half a car here
meanwhile the remaining sewage passes on
to the next part of the process into
these primary settlement tanks now very
basically it enters at that end and
flows relatively slowly this way over
the top of each tank is a moving bridge
which has two blades to remove a solid
organic material from the sewage the top
blade skims scum from the surface while
a second submerged blade dredges the
heavier settled sludge from the bottom
of the tank all this solid sludge is
then sent for further processing the
remaining sewage then flows down this
way towards the secondary biological
treatment process and here it is in
these tanks the sewage is mixed in with
billions upon billions of bacteria so
all the dissolved materials that still
remain can be by degraded and pumping
air from below at very high pressures
causes the sewage to be saturated with
dissolved oxygen and this accelerates
the biological breakdown
brilliance finally the treated effluent
is tested to ensure it’s clean enough to
go back into the Thames meanwhile
remember all of the solids which was
skimmed off earlier they’re taken to a
processing plant these sludges are
brought to this filter press where it’s
be watered
and the resulting sludge cake is
incinerated and that provides 75% of
this entire works power needs
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