Bazalgette sewers still serving London

The London sewers was constructed 167 years ago by a man called Joseph William Bazalgette. This man designed the London sewers which is regarded as the greatest engineering construction in the 19th century.

Before he was contracted in 1860, the city of London depend solely on the "night soil collector" to path away with their waste which was empty into the old city river. 

London had a very big sewage problem and it got even worst when wealthy family poo was empty into the rivers directly through flush toilet which usage was increasing rapidly. 

As London sewage issues got worst and unbearable in 1858, (referred to as the "Great stink") the city became very unconducive for living. The human effluent and industrial waste deposited in the Thame river was the cause for Cholera and typhoid fever that swept through the population. The situation called for a rapid construction of a new massive sewer schemes all round the city.

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. Bazalgette carefully reviewed 137 different proposals to handle the poo problem. Bazalgette's plan was for an extensive underground system of sewers, joining up the patchwork of existing municipal drains. The new system would funnel the waste far downstream of the main city of London, eventually dumping it into the Thames Estuary at high tide. The plans called for two of the intercepting sewers to run along the north and south banks of the Thames, to catch all the waste flowing downhill. 

The project which was completed in 1875 was estimated to carry 2 billions liters of waste everyday, an estimation that was okay to carry the population then and gave room for future growth of people that will live and defecate in inner london. 

Bazalgette sewers have served London for more than 100 years and can still be found today. His project was only design once and still function perfectly despite the high population growth in the city over the years. As he proposed the project has only been adjusted with more pipes of double diameter.