Sewermen to bring home the message (From Swindon Advertiser)

Sewermen to bring home the message

7:00pm Sunday 16th December 2012 in News

SINGING sewermen at Thames Water have released a comedy music video urging people not to wash drain-blocking grease from turkey dinners down their sinks this Christmas.

The latest low-budget reheat of Korean artist Psy’s global hit, Gangnam Style, includes the line: “People put wet wipes and food fat down the drain, blocking up sewers and for us that’s a pain.”

The comedy YouTube video, entitled “Sewerman Style”, stars the company’s burly sewer “flushers,” whose job it is to keep the bowels of London running. Thames Water also supplies water in the Swindon area and has staff based in the town, who have given a thumbs up to the performance.

The music group, led by chief flusher and rapper Rob Smith, is seen singing and dancing above and below the streets of London.

Thames Water spends £12m a year clearing 80,000 sewer blockages across its 109,000km of sewers. In some cases these blockages cause sewage to back up into people’s homes.

Rob said: “This Christmas, before you pour your turkey fat down the sink, ask yourself if you’d like to see it again in a week later swimming around your lounge with a load of excrement – because that's a very real possibility.

“Our video is a bit of festive fun with a very serious message. Sewer flooding results in people literally getting their own back. It’s horrific.

“It’s got to stop. That’s why we’re hell-bent on getting people to take heed of the Sewermen’s war cry: ‘Bin it – don’t block it’. Got it?”

Helen Bailey, Thames Water’s Swindon-based head of customer insight and resolution, said: “We might not be the first organisation to do one of these Gangnam Style videos, but we’re the first to do it this badly.

“The tunelessness of our singing is inversely proportional to our determination to put an end to sewer abuse – putting anything other than human waste or loo roll down drains.”

Watch the video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejBMF2Ka6mA&list=UUcAJrq05RcIOtWrPnDoQGVw&index=1.