The city of Bradford in West Yorkshire has been dubbed as the “curry capital” of Britain, and proudly boasts of 200 Asian restaurants in an industry that employs almost 100,000. However, an underground beck flowing through the city has been discoloured by food waste from curry houses.
Bradford has the ancient plumbing system, which means pipes in older buildings often drain into subterranean streams, rather than into sewers. It is said that washing up from Indian restaurants meant leftover curry was allegedly going straight into the Bradford Beck, which flows into the river Aire.
49-year-old Rob Hellawell, is part of Friends of Bradford's Beck, which made restaurant owners aware of this problem. Hellawell has also seen a similar problem in Westbrook Beck.
He said, “It wasn't like the business owners were throwing waste curry out of their window, they were just washing their pots as usual and unbeknown to them it was landing in the beck. Once we made them aware of the problem they rectified it right away by changing the plumbing. We were delighted to finally clear up this large curry problem, but it is a problem all over Bradford.
