The Great Stink: How Joseph Bazalgette Solved London's Poop Pollution Problem

In 1858, London’s River Thames surged with the raw sewage of 2.5 million people. On a cool day the smell was unpleasant, but that summer an historic heatwave combined with the city’s outdated sewer system to create an olfactory event so putrescent, so feculent, so foul, Londoner’s gave it a name. They called it “The Great Stink”—and it changed the city forever. THE GREAT STINK: HOW JOSEPH BAZALGETTE SOLVED LONDON’S POOP POLLUTION PROBLEM goes back in time to tell the story of how London’s river got so filthy and how Joseph Bazalgette, engineer extraordinaire, cleaned it up—and saved lives—by building one of the world’s first modern sewer systems.