Etiqueta: City Water System

When you press the flush button, your wee, poo, toilet paper and water go down a pipe called a sewer.

The toilet flushes the wastes down the sewer pipe.

The sewer pipe from your house also collects and removes other wastes. This might be soapy water from baths and showers, or water left over from washing dishes and clothes. Together, all of these wastes are called “sewage”.

The wastes from your house join those from other homes and flow into bigger sewer pipes, which take all the sewage to a place where it is treated. This place is called a sewage treatment plant.

Sewage contains lots of germs and if people come into contact with it, it can make them very sick. The treatment also removes things that people have flushed down the toilet.

The sewage is cleaned in the treatment plant. Chemicals are added to kill as many germs as possible. Then the treated water is released into a local river or even the ocean.

[Adapted from CuriousKid]

I. What is the river in London called?

II. True or false?

1. It takes just 24 hours for sewage to be clean enough to return to the river every day.

2. Becton sewage works handles the sewage from 3.4 million Londoners.

3. It equates to 13 Olympic swimming pools every hour.

4. Sewage is mixed with bacteria and oxygen so that it is degraded.

5. Solids are incinerated and that provides energy.