So what can I actually do about the sewage spills and general decimation of our environment?
Posted by JumpPuzzleheaded7546@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 14 comments
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johnmarksmanlovesyou@reddit
Go to your local water company headquarters and pour orbeez down their toilets sinks untill they go bankrupt and we can make them public again
StGuthlac2025@reddit
I know it may feel like things are getting worse however the quality of our waterways has improved dramatically since privatisation. It's not just inland waterways but also coastal areas (this data only goes up to 2014 but I've looked at more recent results and they've showed this increasing improvement).
It's also worth remembering when you see headlines about "Massive increase in sewage discharges" that the increase we are seeing is only an increase in reporting. We didn't used to have the monitors on outflow pipes providing the data, now we do then the results show a spike but in fact they were always this way and the longer term testing data shows the rivers waterways are still improving.
AnonymousTimewaster@reddit
Thank you, water industry spokesperson
LordSideQuest@reddit
"Water quality has improved dramatically since privatisation"
This is partially true but heavily cherry-picks the timeframe and metrics. There were genuine improvements in some areas in the decades immediately after privatisation in 1989, the Environment Agency has documented reductions in pollution loads from sewage treatment works, including ammonia down by 80%, biochemical oxygen demand down by 55%, and phosphate down by 68% between 1995 and 2020. Beaches also improved.
However, the current overall picture is damning. The Environment Agency reports that only 14% of rivers in England currently meet "good ecological status" as defined by the Water Framework Directive. CIEH So while some chemical measures improved significantly over a 30-year period (largely driven by EU legislation and regulatory pressure, not privatisation itself), the overall ecological health of rivers remains very poor. Saying quality has improved "dramatically" while 86% of rivers fail to reach good ecological status is misleading at best.
"The increase in sewage discharges is only an increase in reporting"
This is the most misleading part of the comment, and echoes arguments that have been directly identified as industry deflection tactics. A peer-reviewed paper in Nature Water found that water companies discharged 12.7 million monitored hours of untreated wastewater into English waterways between 2019 and the end of 2023, and argued that the companies have prolonged this environmental disaster through strategies that mirror those of other large polluting industries. Nature
It is true that the overflow monitoring system started in 2016 with fewer than 1,000 monitors, and by the end of 2023 all storm overflows had monitors fitted, House of Commons Library which means earlier years were undercounted. So there's a grain of truth that better monitoring reveals more. But:
Research has demonstrated that water companies were substantially underreporting the number of untreated sewage discharges, many of which occurred under "normal" rainfall or even during dry weather, and at two wastewater treatment plants, almost 1,000 previously unreported spills were identified.
The volume of discharges has also increased. In 2023, there were 3.6 million hours of spills compared to 1.75 million hours in 2022, the number of individual spills soared by 54%. While some of this is attributable to 2023 being an exceptionally wet year, this trend over multiple years isn't just a reporting artefact.
The "it was always this way" argument is essentially unverifiable, and the water companies themselves have been caught discharging illegally on dry days, which refutes the idea that the problem is purely legacy infrastructure responding to rain.
"Longer-term testing data shows rivers are still improving"
Thats misleading in the current context. While long-term chemical data does show improvements from the 1990s baseline, invertebrate community richness increased from 1991 to 2005 overall, and to 2010 in urban rivers, with no increase after that. In other words, ecological improvement stalled well over a decade ago. Presenting an upward trend that stopped improving around 2010 as evidence that things are "still improving" today is not accurate.
Imaginary_Finger7844@reddit
You can't do anything except making sure that you're not contributing to it.
AnonymousTimewaster@reddit
The only way you can do that is to stop shitting.
Imaginary_Finger7844@reddit
Dig a hole in the garden. Leave it for the badgers.
All the joy of an outdoor poo without the seething anger and pointless empathy over situations you cannot control.
AnonymousTimewaster@reddit
And what if you don't have a garden?
Imaginary_Finger7844@reddit
Shit in a bucket with a handle and fertilize someone else's garden.
I'm offering practical solutions yet you're still fighting me on this. It's a great idea.
Basic-Pangolin553@reddit
Apply superglue liberally
Super-Surround-4347@reddit
Stop reading about it so much. It's designed to get you down.
By all means stay informed, but don't let it completely ruin your life.
I've been away for a few days and completely switched off from the news and social media. I feel so much better.
AnonymousTimewaster@reddit
See if there's any lawsuits in your local area. If there's a river or lake that you used to enjoy but no longer do, you'll be eligible to join a group (class action) claim. There's claims ongoing for River Wye, Usk, Exmouth, and they're starting to look at ones for lakes including Windermere.
This guy is doing a decent amount of campaigning. Maybe get in touch with him to see how you could help.
EntirelyRandom1590@reddit
Are you in a combined sewage system?
If you are, they beat thing you can do is ensure as little rainwater leaves your property as possible, or reduce the amount that enters the combined sewage system.
That includes things like soakaways, removing hard landscaping for permeable services, using "leaky" water butts, using living roofs on flat roofs, and creating water features in your garden. This then means rain water isn't forcing sewage out of combined sewage overflows. If we all did this with even a 250 litre water butt it would drastically reduce the CSO discharges in our antiquated system.
If you're on a separate system, then ensuring you're not discharging grey water into the rainwater system is vital, as this pollutes the local soakaways and surface water.
Otherwise, donate and volunteer for water management organisations. These include parklands and nature reserves that build leaky dams and block historic drainage ditches to improve ground saturation in uplands areas.
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