09 May 2023
The UK government is planning to consult on expanding its targets to tackle sewage even further to cover all coasts, estuaries and marine protected sites, Defra has confirmed. The Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan, published in August 2022, set out stringent targets to protect people and the environment, backed up by £56 billion capital investment – […]
02 May 2023
Anglian Water pleaded guilty and was hit with a fine of £2.65m after allowing untreated sewage to overflow into the North Sea following a prosecution brought by the Environment Agency (EA). A catalogue of failures by the company to manage and monitor effluent at the Jaywick Water Recycling Centre in Essex led to sewage being […]
05 Apr 2023
The government has published its Plan for Water, which it says highlights “more investment, stronger regulation and tougher enforcement on water companies” But the issue of storm overflows continues to dominate, as the Environment Agency published sewage spill data for 2022, showing a 19% reduction in the number of sewage spills, largely due to last […]
04 Apr 2023
The BBC has reported that water companies released raw sewage into rivers and seas in England for more than 1.75 million hours last year. There were an average of 825 sewage spills into waterways per day, the data shows – down 19% on the previous year. The latest data, revealed by the Environment Agency on […]
15 Mar 2023
Article in the Guardian All toilet paper from across the globe checked for toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” contained the compounds, and the waste flushed down toilets and sent to sewage treatment plants likely creates a significant source of water pollution, new research has found. Once in the wastewater plant, the chemicals can be packed in […]
02 Mar 2023
Below is an extract from Water UK on the recent launch by two national newspapers, The Times and the ‘i’, of campaigns to improve the nation’s rivers and seas: This is a good thing. It’s never comfortable for any sector to feel the detailed scrutiny of journalists – but there are three reasons why it’s […]
28 Feb 2023
The High Court has given permission for a hearing to take place on whether the government’s plan for reducing sewage dumping is too lenient in what could potentially be “the most consequential environmental law case in recent history” according to the non-profit supporting the case, reported in New Civil Engineer. Defra released the Storm […]
08 Feb 2023
Over the past few months, the scandal of our sewage-polluted watercourses and seas in the UK has had widespread publicity. The public is rightly horrified that most of our British watercourses are not fit for swimming in and that untreated sewage spills have occurred so often – but not all of us are aware that […]
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