The fat is the product of Londoners’ “sewer abuse” — using the water system as general garbage disposal. Particularly troublesome is Londoners’ habit of pouring used cooking oil down the sink. Once in the sewer, the oil cools, congeals and then traps other garbage. Getting at the goo was not easy. Teams of workers, replete with breathing apparatus to protect them from the rancid smell, had to attack the fat with shovels. They then used water cannons to break down the “fatbergs” inside the sewer.

“Cities create things, consume them and produce their by-product which we call waste. The efficient functioning of a city depends on its ability to deal with this waste. In our economy the patterns of production, consumption and waste management are global, but the effects are localised.” - Studio 12 brief and results.

Tristram Stuart likes to rummage in bins. A tall, 32-year-old with floppy hair and chiselled features, he is a connoisseur of rubbish in all its variety. He can tell you what time central London convenience stores put their binbags out on to the streets and hazard a good guess as to what will be in them. He can tell you about how the waste policies of major supermarkets differ: how much of their rubbish is diverted to landfill and how much is recycled or incinerated; which ones lock up their bins, and which leave them open. Stuart is a “freegan” – someone who subsists largely on food discarded by others. Through this practice, he has become thoroughly acquainted him with the ins and outs of rubbish and he long ago got over any squeamishness about handling it. For him, a bin full of chucked-out food is not an object of physical revulsion. Rather, it’s an opportunity.