Sewage In Our Rivers ~ The Ugly Truth

With sewage being pumped onto our beaches and into our rivers, this rant was never far away.
🔻FIND OUT MORE🔻

How Joseph Bazalgette built London's first super-sewer:

London's Next Super-Sewer:

Thames Water:

_________________________

The problem of sewage flowing into rivers in the UK is a multifaceted issue that has been a subject of concern for many decades.

Environmental Impact:

Pollution: Sewage discharge introduces harmful pollutants, including bacteria, viruses, heavy metals, and pharmaceutical residues, into river ecosystems.

Eutrophication: Sewage contains high levels of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. When they enter rivers, they can cause excessive growth of algae and other aquatic plants, leading to oxygen depletion and killing off fish and other aquatic life.

Damage to Ecosystems: Apart from chemical pollutants, sewage also carries solid waste and debris that can choke waterways, disrupt habitats, and endanger aquatic life.

Human Health Risks:

Contamination of Drinking Water: Many communities draw their drinking water from rivers. If these sources are contaminated, it can lead to outbreaks of waterborne diseases.

Recreational Hazards: People who swim, kayak, or engage in other recreational activities in polluted rivers are at risk of infections.

Economic Impacts:

Tourism: Polluted rivers can deter tourists, affecting local businesses and the wider economy.

Fisheries: Pollution can devastate local fish populations, impacting commercial and recreational fishing.

Legacy Infrastructure:

Many of the UK’s sewage systems are old and combine rainwater runoff with sewage. During heavy rainfall, these combined sewer systems can get overwhelmed, leading to the discharge of untreated or partially treated sewage directly into rivers.

Lack of Investment:

Aging infrastructure requires consistent investment to upgrade and maintain. In some cases, there has been a lack of sufficient investment in sewage treatment and stormwater management, exacerbating the problem.

Regulatory and Monitoring Challenges:

Historically, there have been instances where water companies were found to be in breach of environmental permits. Ensuring strict compliance and having robust monitoring mechanisms in place is essential.

Public Awareness:

There's often a lack of awareness among the general public regarding the sources and consequences of river pollution. Educating people can help drive community-based solutions and increase pressure on responsible parties to take action.

Climate Change:

Increasing extreme weather events like heavy rainfall can overwhelm the sewage systems more frequently, leading to more frequent discharges into rivers.

Over the years, significant efforts have been to address the issue, with environmental agencies, NGOs, and other stakeholders working to improve water quality, upgrade sewage treatment infrastructure, and enforce tighter regulations. However, there's still a long way to go to fully address the problem.

==========================================
#sewage #rants #thames

🛒 As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases

◾ Out of respect to our channel sponsors and the wide variety of people who watch our videos, we'll remove comments that do not follow common standards of politeness and decency.

[normanbott]

Love this "rant", especially as a retired water company employee. I designed a Geographic Information System (computerised mapping ) for the sewerage network so I got to appreciate its enormous complexity of the systems. Saw the financial incompetence and waste too.

[maxtroy]

The script for the video was absolutely genius. I think you get a distinction in creative writing too.

[umwhatthistime]

Well said. Privatisation of utilities was a disaster for everyone.

[frankmckie]

God we need people like Rodger ans skill builder to sort this country out I'm scottish I want independence.... but if skill builder was a union party and Rodger run for prime minister I'd blooming vote for you .... we need down to earth people to run this country. 😀👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[bigbarry]

i remember in the '00s there was a constant stream of adds for baby wipes which are safe to flush. the parties involved in legalizing this product and facilitating those commercials should be held responsible.

[drmvh]

Let's never forget the massive dividends paid to shareholders in the privatised water companies that should have been reinvested into improved sewerage processing infrastructure... as you say under investment is a major problem, thanks for highlighting Sarah Bentley, asset stripping and privatisation. Go Roger!

[Mr.Unacceptable]

The screen should be on the property. Make the person that flushed the problem pay for the problem.

[Nite-owl]

Perhaps if the water companies weren't paying such obscenely massive dividends out they just might have the funds needed to upgrade and properly invest, back into the infrastructure !

[mj]

Spellbinding, Roger - a brilliant listen. Feels like we're going down the pan in more ways than one! Thank you, as ever👍

[chippyminton]

Brilliant video Roger, This should be compulsory viewing in schools and offices throughout the country. There is far too much ignorance of why the system is being overloaded and the excess being discharged into rivers, inland waterways, and the sea.
I found the bit at the end quite alarming, how have these private companies so blatantly got away with running up this massive debt while at the same time failed to update their infrastructure and pay massive premiums to shareholders. Not only that it's looking like we're going to be the ones picking up all the debt and cost of renewing the systems. The whole thing has been a con in my opinion of epic proportions !!

[versi]

I'd love it if give us a proper tour and history of the London sewage system sometime, it really is an underated marvel.

[projectbuild]

Scottish Water did a massive programme of upgrades to CSOs in the Glasgow area. Turns out that they throttled the output pipes on loads (if not all) of the replacement CSOs meaning that less water can go to the sewage works than was the case with the original victorian CSOs. They have literally squeezed the outgoing pipe to make sure more water spills over and goes direct to the rivers, thereby saving costs on treatment.

We reported it to SEPA who has simply stated they are licenced to spill the water so all is good. The two organisations are far too close, literally working together to allow the pollution.

[catabaticanabatic]

There's a quick and easy solution - stop shitting. I worked for years as a maintenance engineer at waste water treatment works / sewage pumping stations. The vast majority of problems/damage caused was by what people threw down their toilets or drains that they shouldn't have. Wet wipes and oils/fat are the two main ones. I would like to get hold of the one person that does this and put them up against a wall . It is only one person responsible because nobody I've ever talked to about this matter would ever do such a thing - ever. This person causes millions of pounds worth of damage to the sewerage infrastructure. Maybe it is the same person whose dog shits everywhere and doesn't clean it up? They obviously get about a bit.

[pgtips]

I’m not involved in the water industry but I did have a connection to Welsh Water many years ago and have to say that they did spend millions on infrastructure. They treated sewage with ultra violet light as well as bacteria and operated one of the very first ‘activated sludge’ sewage treatment plants in the country.

[jackking]

I've been screaming about this problem for the past 25 years. I'm no greenie and I pre-date Surfers Against Sewage. I began seeing problems after the water companies were privatised. The systems, for the most, were acceptable - done so to make the taking over such systems acceptable to share holders.
Soon though, we began seeing a huge increase in house building. Those houses were added to what was an acceptable sewer system and almost overnight the sewers became overloaded. The water companies, in the meantime, did nothing. No upgrades to the sewer system and even less maintenance. Some systems have screens in to help catch solids and locally to me the water company were contracted to clean the screens monthly. They stopped cleaning the screens - their excuse being that it was dangerous to do so as an animal might fall into the sewer when they were cleaning them. Yeah - not an excuse.
Today, my local streams and rivers are lifeless. CSO's overflow daily. Heck some have had their alarms disconnected by the water company to avoid fines. Gone are the water voles, gone are the fish and eels, gone are the ducks.
Thank you for covering this subject.

[mikescott]

Thank you for enlightening further and makes me think more of what I'm pouring away. We had a building firm washing down their tools recently in the drains. L&S Concrete Pumping

[jack]

Great video, the passion is palpable!
The water privatisation situation is beyond a joke, loans equal to dividends, debt the taxpayer will end up picking up when they are inevitably renationalised. Sewage released during dry spells as it's cheaper to not run the cleanup plants. The CEOs and politicians responsible should have sewage trucks drop off shit at their homes.

[DarkZoneV]

Thanks for educating us, Mr. Rodger 👍

[andljoy]

I work in IT infrastructure, nobody gives a shit about maintaining and upgrading infrastructure until its all goes tits up and then they complain that you have not sorted it when they gave you 3.99 to do a job that costs 100k

[paulbeaumont]

God bless you Roger, a clear and sound message, sadly I’m not sure those who need to know won’t be watching