The Great Stink of 1858 was a crisis for London’s sustainability as a city. As Chief Engineer of London’s Metropolitan Board of Works, Bazalgette’s biggest achievement was the installation of a system of separating sewage from water supply through a series of intercepting sewers. This relieved the city of its cholera and typhus epidemics, that had killed over 40,000 people between 1831 and 1866, and cleaned up the tidal section of the River Thames.

The system was first designed when London’s population was around 2 million with spare capacity for a doubling of the population. It is a testament to his design that the system has served London to the present day for a population over 9 million. It is only now about to be supplemented by the Thames Tideway tunnel. His achievement is a superb exemplar for SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), and SDG 3 (Health and Wellbeing), and also SDGs 9 (Industry, innovation and infrastructure) and 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities).