I remember my dad telling me about the "sewer chapters" in Les Miserables, which was the first time I realized how critical sewers are to cities--and there are lovely children's movies where we follow Ratatouille back home and up through the cityscape (it seems we cannot get away from Europe)--the trip I made with my husband where his goal was to see a NYC subway rat--sewers are epic and a huge part of our culture. I enjoyed delving through Hester's perspective.

This was SO interesting.
Honestly think that everyone should give it a read because it blew my mind.
So informative and intriguing, who knew a sewer could be such an interesting topic

This was fundamentally disappointing, alas. The author writes for Atlas Obscura, and most of this book felt like a series of Atlas Obscura articles: interesting notes that never go much deeper than an internet blog post. I learned very little that I hadn't already known from reading the perpetual articles about fatbergs that come out every winter; the occasional New Yorker article about biofuel creation; and of course the hive mind wisdom that everyone responsible for maintaining their own home's plumbing already knows: 'flushable' wipes aren't flushable.

The focus was almost exclusively London sewers and various US-based municipalities, with the occasional historical commentary on historical sewer systems--mostly in England--and some descriptions of architecture of waste treatment plants that do not include sufficient photographs to actually illustrate the text.

This book gathers together all of those tidbits of information and puts them between the same covers, but if someone is actually interested enough in sewers to read a whole book on them, that person is likely to already know much of what is in this book, and get impatient and frustrated while looking for the rest of the content that isn't there.

By far the best book this series has presented us with in years, this was a very easy and interesting read throughout. In calling it journalistic, I intend that as a positive quality to have. There are of course a few reasons why this doesn't fall in the general sphere of these Object Lessons books – mainly because they can much more regularly be about something we have in our possession we barely think about, and certainly never expect to read a full volume on – the Bookshelf one the perfect example. We don't generally own a sewer, but we damn well use the accessible end of one, and this proves that we ought to look after them at least as if we might own a share of them. In being full of environmental bad news, however, it ends on a positive and warm-hearted note.

And again it gets there in ways so counter to the Object Lessons of late. There is a barest minimum of needless autobiography. This gets no more woke than mentioning the term 'manhole cover' has been gazumped by something much more ungainly. It doesn't feel the need to proselytise about race or gender politics. It just gets down – a few metres below our feet, where the temperature is surprisingly constant year-round – and somewhat dirty, and introduces us to the flow dynamics of modern sewer ideas, fatbergs, microplastics, the deliberate dumping of untreated water into our coastal waters, and so much more. It certainly proves that there is a lot we just dispose of down there and never think about again – surely the reason for so many of our current environmental problems.

Some recent books of this series I'd barely wish to wipe my arse with. The author here might well have managed to polish a – well, one of the contents of the sewers. You might not want to read it over a bowl of chocolates, but you should want to read it. Friendly original research, both sides of the pond, makes this a very approachable science book, and one that should be flushed with success.

Except for a niche group of people, I don't think many folks expect to ever read a book about sewers. I certainly didn't, but when I saw this one pop up on Net Galley I figured I'd give it a shot. It's a topic I didn't know much about before reading. I'm glad to say that this short read was chock full of information I otherwise never would have contemplated or been introduced to. While it is not my personal favorite of the Object Lessons series, this book still challenges the reader to contemplate a system they've likely taken for granted.

I never thought I would read a book about Sewers but I did and learned a lot about this type of infrastructure.
It's absolutely necessary but we never think about it unless there's a leakage or bad smell.
The author did an excellent job in writing a book entertaining and informative.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Sewer shares the past, present, and future of the systems humanity uses to handle our bodily wastes. Jessica Leigh Hester journalist, and self described historian-in-training, focuses their writing on science and the environment. Hester was also a senior editor and staff writer for the travel website Atlas Obscura.

Hester has organized the book into seven chapters, each centered on a particular aspect or issues of sewer infrastructure, such as "fatbergs," or "wipes & pipes." Alternating between the present and historic, the reader learns about such topics as testing fecal matter for drug use, or more recently COVID-19, to how our diets and habits have been shaped by access to or the lack of sewage.

An interesting and engaging read that had me frequently considering habits and the Tom Lehrer quote: "Life is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it." (Introduction to "We Will All Go Together When We Go." 1959 Live edition).

“Sewer” by Jessica Leigh Hester is my introduction to the Object Lessons series, short books that focus on the hidden history of everyday objects. Based on this quick read, I will be exploring the series further.

This is a book about something that we don’t really think about, something that we take for granted, yet something that is a very important part of our everyday lives and urban society in general – the sewers beneath our feet. Most of us flush the toilet without thinking of the complex systems that whisk our waste away and prevent the disease and other unpleasantness from reaching our lives. Ms. Hester peels back the mystery and lets us know exactly how this system operates, how we got to where we are now, and how this system is overtaxed and out of date. Our modern society is using the sewers in ways the designers have never intended, and we are beginning to pay the consequences. From giant “fatbergs” blocking the sewers to FOG (fat, oil, grease) coating the pipes to the threat of microplastics in our systems to populations much greater that the aging infrastructure can support, we are learning that just because we ignore the problems under our feet doesn’t mean that they will go away.

If you take anything away from this book, it should be that you should never, ever flush wet wipes, no matter what the package states! A fascinating look at the hidden world that makes our society possible.

I requested and received a free advanced electronic copy from Bloomsbury Academic via NetGalley. Thank you!

I've read enough Object Lessons now that they can sometimes inform each other. One of my very first OL's was Environment by Professor Rolf Halden, which had a chapter about wastewater sampling to monitor disease in urban settings. That was written before the pandemic, and seemed like excellent use of our built environment, and here, three years later we get Sewer - which also talks a lot about waste-water sampling. It also talks about how sewers work and rushes through a history of sewers and fatbergs. I wonder if the first pitch for this book was called Fatberg, because whilst Jessica Leigh Hester has rightly guaged her readership fascination with the grotesque horrors, it does seem to feature a lot in here.

This is not a very personal Object Lesson, which is probably just as well (Me And My Fatberg is unlikely to storm the box office). It is however hugely skewed toward my interests. Despite being based in New England her primary case study is London. This makes sense in as much as London's sewers have a lot of history, and celebration as public works. We also have a lot of fatbergs. So going back to a Pepys quote (or - my big wobble moment - "a man named Samuel Pepys who would go on to be a Member of Parliament") to the building of the massive new Thames Tideway Tunnel, A second smaller case study (about cooking oil collection) is in Portland Maine, a place where I accidentally did a surprisingly in-depth wander around its main central sewage plant. Sewer is a fascinating read, icky in all the right ways. It doesn't want to change the world, it just wants to make you never flush a wet wipe down the toilet again.

“Sewer-That Infrastructure We Take For Granted, with Jessica Leigh Hester”
November 1, 2022

Written by:

Sandy James Planner

It is one of the most important pieces of infrastructure but we never think of it working below the feet of the city.

While water works and other amenities necessary to sanitary city life have been built like monuments, there is not the same adulation or pleasure taken in the sewer, that vital piece of infrastructure that allows density of people without a seething bacterial mess of scent and disease.

In a series of “books about ordinary things” journalist and historian Jessica Leigh Hester peels off the layers of discomfort of the sewer, and brings readers to a full understanding of the function, history, and future of sewers, and how climate change needs to be factored in to how sewers operate. In preparation for the book launch and tour this month, Ms. Hester has been making her own “fatberg” to show readers what it is, what it looks like, and how it blocks sewers.

Her book “Sewer” describes how and why sewers were developed, and how even today they are topical, with wastewater showing “what’s going on inside people’s bodies even before something is obviously awry”.

Her well researched book has copious generous footnotes, describing other areas that can be delved into. While describing the history of sewers, Ms. Hester also delves into the future of what we put into them which does not leave. She has chapters describing the impact of fats, wet wipes and plastics “that slough off …and tumble into the water will endure on shores or in sediments for generations”.

It was the big flush from the introduction of toilets in the the first part of the 1800’s in Paris and the showcasing of toilets in London’s Great Exhibition of 1851 that really started the sewer conundrum.

Sewers were not designed to take large amounts of gushing water, and many sewers went straight into local rivers and streams. That started to change with facilities like London’s Crossness Pumping Facility built in 1865 covered 6.5 acres and was designed to pump sewage from South London “into an enormous reservoir that could hold 25 million gallons”.

And in Paris Georges-Eugene Haussmann who rebuilt 19th century Paris “described the pipes as the vital organs of the great city” which were eventually open for tours. Paris had an enviable collection of public toilets across the city. When a public toilet was introduced at the 1851 London Great Exhibition it attracted a lot of interest and was “reportedly visited more than 827,800 times”.

But something has happened about the regard of sewers and waste facilities as the Cathedrals of Sewage. Perhaps because of human prudeness, or how we don’t value public washrooms or the load of water and waste humans dispose of, sewer infrastructure is never really discussed, understood or planned for.

And that is where wet wipes, a 20th and 21st century phenomenon comes in. One British utility says that 80 percent of their 40,000 blockages a year are due to people flushing down these products which cause “subterranean chaos”.

Ms. Hester recreates how these wet wipes came into being, and how they have been coded as a replacement for the bidet, as a makeup remover, and as something absolutely necessary during the Covid Pandemic. And while in many places sewage is treated in plants around the world, these wipes still are discharged into river courses where locals do clean ups specifically to remove them. Along the British Thames River there is a “Great Wet Wipe Reef” and a “Frankenstein foreshore”, an artificial piling of wipes changing the formation of the shoreline.

In 2021 to counter the “flushable” wipe theory the US Congress is considering a bill to slap a “Do Not Flush” label on these products.

And that brings the conversation to “Fatbergs”. These are “foul clumps” that can reach “titanic heft” and one that weighed 11 tons clogging up the sewers. These masses contain different types of fat, dairy products, and soapy liquids with of course the wet wipes. They are not chemically identical, but they all serve the purpose of clogging the sewer system. Ms. Hester travels with British sewer crews to see how these fatbergs are dispersed (firstly by water jets or a hose or a vacuum).

As Ms. Hester describes “Fatbergs are a rebuke-a signal that our habits have consequences…there is not much distance between the often-hidden infrastructural world and the more obvious one we engage with each day”.

In terms of the future, density and our habits to live in cities have great impacts on sewers, especially with climate change. Today more than 80 percent of the world’s wastewater is released untreated, and some (like the City of Vancouver’s) still have combined sewer and sanitary sewers that dump directly into water bodies in a huge rain event. Vancouver was to have a completely separated storm and sanitary sewer system in this decade; but over the past 40 years that has been delayed at times of budget response. Out of sight, out of mind. But those sewage releases also include microplastics, which in Florida were killing coral by smothering them.

This book contains stories about Ms. Hester’s visits in sewers, to waste fat collectors, to lakes and rivers and oceans, and into the depth of sewage facilities. She also describes success stories for sewage, like South Bend Indiana that used automated gates to control stormwater release from combined sewers. Under past Mayor Pete Buttigieg the city slashed overflows by one billion gallons a year.

Ms. Hester argues that citizens should know about their wastewater plants, and be able to visit them and use them as recreation and placemaking opportunities. But she also puts forward that as cities react to more climate change events and more density, that the sewer capacity developed for municipalities in the last few decades will not be able to keep up. And that has changed the author’s habits, who thinks about how to avoid putting fats in the drain or putting her fleece jacket in the wash (which causes microplastics to flow in the water).

This is an easy to read, approachable book, written in a captivating style. It follows Ms. Hester’s journey of learning about sewers, how they are managed, what impacts them, and what the ramifications are for waterways with our growing populations and climate change events. I highly recommend this book, which will open up more questions and thoughts about sewer infrastructure, impacts future use and design.

As Ms. Hester summarizes “I keep thinking about what sewers reveal about the way people treat the planet, and how we might be gentler…Maybe it’s apt to think of our cumulative habits as water rushing through a pipe-ever mingling, never alone“.

The book is available through Bloomsbury Publishing starting in November 2022 and can be purchased as an e-book or paperback. You can put in your order in now.

Sewage and sewers may not be the topics of polite conversation around many dinner tables but wow, this book is utterly compelling! Author Jessica Leigh Hester tackles this dirty topic with a wickedly good sense of humour and oodles of facts as well as brilliant photographs.

So many things stuck with me such as sewers acting as barometers including the finding of massive amounts of cocaine in the River Po in Italy, the arduous task of chipping away at fatbergs, London's early "Monster Soup" cartoon renditions, The Great Stink, impressive Crossness steam engines (many sewer systems are actually beautiful), the first public toilets, the Moist Towelette Museum, the wicked world of wipes, the dangers to sewer crews, bringing the sewer into labs and the reminder to be mindful of our environmental choices. But there is so much more, too.

Whether you are intrigued by sewers (and you should be!), this is one fascinating book. The piles of information are breathtaking and I want more people to learn about them!

My sincere thank you to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for the privilege of digesting this riveting book.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of this absolutely fascinating book! This book kept me engaged, made me laugh and taught me many things, like to never - EVER - flush a wet wipe. This is a short and entertaining read for any history non-fic readers who want something a little more unique.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Bloomsbury Academic for an advanced copy of this book discussing the underworld of the cities and where its detritus flows.

Everything has to go somewhere. One of humanity's largest infrastructures for making things go away is one of the misunderstood and underfunded, and yet without it, we would be up to our knees in all sorts of gross things, we would prefer not to know about. Sewer, by Jessica Leigh Hester is another entry in the Object Lessons series, which features the hidden life of things that humans would be miserable without. This entry describes the vast underworld that runs under the cities and towns of the world, which contain all the things we flush away, but no not where.

The importance of sewers seems easy to acknowledge, but ask an average person, even a politician who should know, where do things go when we flush them away, many will have no idea. Or care. Just like water, electricity, food, the Internet, and other important things humans as they got older lose the curiosity that makes them wonder why things are, and remain completely incurious about basic services and infrastructure in general. Until things go wrong and they have to pay for it, then everyone does their own research, complains to the heavens, and votes against it, thereby solving and learning nothing. This book is a short but powerful look at what humans have done to rid their living space of waste, what lies beneath our cities, and even what sewers can tell us. Sewers can tell the health of an area, from overcrowding, excess packaging, and even the spread of disease, as has been used during the COVID outbreaks. Hester discusses the science of sewers, what the future might be like, and even ventures down into the Earth to deal with problems, and clogs, called fatbergs.

A fascinating look at waste from a different point of view. The writing is very good, very conversational, even personal about what the author has been learning and how important this all seems to be. For a short book, a lot can be learned, and many conversations started, though probably not over meals. Actually sharing stories about fatbergs is probably not something to be recommended in the slightest. Each page has facts and information, well described and broken down and moves along at a good pace. Which is something that sometimes can't be said about sewers. There is a lot blocking the future of sewage, mostly people's indifference, not wanting to spend money, and the fact that it really is a gross discussion to be had. However there is much to be leaned from this book, and to take hope in.

A book for fans of odd science like the books of Mary Roach and others. Very well written and interesting. Not for all readers, but I do think that people who are community organizers, and those who plan for public office might be helped by this book as a primer to what is probably going to be both a major infrastructure and public health problem in the future. Also for horror writers looking for ambiance and story ideas. Fatbergs are the new Pennywise in the sewer.

Thank you to Bloomsbury Academic for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really didn't expect to enjoy a book about sewers so much. Though, a word of warning, some gross details come as part of the territory. The book is a quick, thorough, and informative read. More than that, it's an eye opening account of an element of infrastructure that's being severely taxed (which I didn't previously know the details of) and a call to action to do what we can to address how we treat our sewers, our waterways, our oceans...

And once you know these things, you can't look past it again. The awareness is the first step, and Hester does an excellent job of bringing the reader to a gentle awareness of a massive problem (and simple things we can do to avoid burdening the infrastructure further).

OK, first thing to note is that you probably want a relatively strong stomach to read all of this... and you definitely don't want to read it while eating. While it's not revolting, there are some descriptions of sewers and fatbergs that are not the most pleasant of reading experiences.

Secondly, stop flushing wipes. No, seriously. Even the ones that say they're flushable. Stop flushing them. They're not really flushable. When you put something down the toilet it doesn't ACTUALLY, magically, disappear. It still needs to go somewhere. And wipes? Oh, they do not disintegrate and become harmless like you might imagine. Stop. Flushing. Wipes.

This book is really remarkable. As with the best of the Object Lesson books, it's personal and it's deeply researched and it's fascinating. Hester is convincing in her argument that sewers are vital to understand because they help us understand our past, as well as consider our future. She is also adamant that investing in sewer infrastructure is something that has been lacking (and I'm completely terrified and appalled by some of the stories about that) and is vitally important for our future. No one wants a return to typhoid and cholera in places like London. Which also means that those places without good, sturdy, reliable sewers - ones that DON'T JUST EJECT WASTE INTO THE OPEN WATER - absolutely need financial assistance in getting that done. If you don't think that's a priority... you're wrong. Simple as that.

Highly recommended for the civil engineer in your life, or the person who's always asking 'why is it like that?", or the person with the more-scatalogical-than-necessary sense of humour.

Also, STOP FLUSHING WIPES.

A quick little read that tells you everything about sewers you never thought you wanted to know. I think this is a series of Cliff's Notes-style books, although the long list of citations at the end of each section threw me off. There was no need for that, given the format and audience. That aside, the content was realy good and covered ancient history, recent history, and maintenance & operations of municipal sewers. Missing was anything about their construction, but that's OK. I liked the book for covering an important topic for all of us that most people don't think about.

Out of sight, out of mind - as the author of this book notes, we tend to think that in the 21st century the sewage is not an issue and everything that disappears in our toilets really just, you know, disappears. Unfortunately, this is not the case. If you want to learn more about what is happening in the dark labyrinths under our streets and how you can personally change the situation for the better, it is a book for you. Jessica Leigh Hester is a science journalist and she dives into this smelly topic with boundless curiosity and open mind. Surprising and informative read.

The book is a part of an interesting series, Object Lessons, about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Thanks to the publisher, Bloomsbury Academic, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

Thank you Bloomsberry Academic and Netgalley.com for the opportunity to read and review this first book by Jessica Leigh Hester. 'Sewer' an underground conduit for carrying off drainage water and waste matter, the saying of the word conjures up feelings of terror for some, a sense of claustrophobia, smells, and disgusting things that get flushed down the loo! As a nurse of 20 years used to patient toilet habits the reading and pun intended digestion of this relatively small read was full of juicy titbits on sewers and associated aspects such as waterways, fatbergs - the 11-ton beast, and super sewers. At the end of each chapter are offered further reading for the avid sewer fan and tender fact slices to tickle the tastebuds, with some interesting information on modern day inventions to tackle the very topical subject in the UK on water pollution from sewer overflow and covid-19 detection in faeces. So just in case you still wonder on what this book is all about its the 3 P's Pee, Paper and Poo - just remember don't flush wet wipes the bane of sewers. I would of preferred a little more history on sewers through history and a focus on the UK.

Fascinating Look At Mostly Current Status Of Sewer Systems. After having read Chelsea Wald's Pipe Dreams in 2021 about the history and future of toilets, this book seemed a natural progression in my learning on the topic - and at just 200 pages, it was a quick yet seemingly comprehensive look at the current status of the topic. That noted, this book *does* use London as its primary narrative example, though there are also discussions of other locations including Chicago, Cleveland, NYC, and the struggles of the developing world. There are also extensive discussions of fatbergs, wet wipes, and microplastics. (Basically... don't flush a wet wipe. It doesn't end well.) Overall a fascinating and short read, pretty well exactly what it was designed to be. Very much recommended.

Suppose you're 1000% sure you would never wish to read about the history, functioning, and especially malfunctioning of sewer systems, take this much away from Jessica Leigh Hester's terrific book:

WET WIPES ARE OF THE DEVIL AND YOU SHOULD NEVER FLUSH THEM.

Seriously! Hester has been there, seen the fatbergs (fat + oil + grease + wet wipes clogging sewers), talked to the sewer workers and the researchers, and read the scientific studies, and she's here to tell you that no matter what it says on the package, wet wipes are not flushable. They do not disintegrate on the way down and out; they just join up with the cooking oil and other greases, along with tampon applicators, soda caps, used rubbers, hair, and other appalling detritus of our great throwaway society to accrete into giant, stinking, toxic masses that maintenance workers now must risk their lives and health to break up and remove.

Sometimes with pickaxes.

Fatbergs are a contemporary problem, but Jessica Leigh Hester has plenty to say not only about the history of waste disposal but also about the uses to which all that ... stuff ... can be put. A historical tidbit: Give thanks every day for the bend in the bottom of your toilet bowl, for it keeps sewer gases from floating up into your bathroom.

Read Sewer and learn: Why fossils don't form in sewers. Why wastewater epidemiology is a feature mostly of the developed world (the developing world has less infrastructure and less money to spend on research -- surprise!). What there was more of in Athens's wastewater during Greece's debt crisis earlier in this century. Why microplastics have been banned from cosmetics in the US. Why bidets are environmentally much, much better than toilet paper, as well as being better undercarriage-cleaners.

If I had a bone to pick with this book, it's only that I could have done with fewer waste-related puns and less alliteration from effect. Dinging, say, a tenth of a star.

Oh, and about those wet wipes? Sorry, but they're not doing the world any more good in landfill than they are in the sewers.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this fascinating book.