A conservation charity has warned holiday-makers to be careful as they prepare for their summer holidays, with a map laying bare the alarming sewage discharges along scenic hotspots.
The Rivers Trust have told customers to check where rubbish is being let out into the sea and rivers and make sure they don’t bathe downstream of one.
It comes as outrage boils against water companies, who will have to end sewage dumping by 2050 under new government targets.
Experts at the environmental organisation have compiled an interactive map – showing where sewage is dumped and overflows into rivers, hoping it will help people avoid the human waste polluting our waterways.
The Rivers Trust Comms & Advocacy Director Tessa Wardley said that people are rightly looking forward to exploring the beauty on our doorstep in the British Isles this summer including our rivers, lakes, and beaches, so it’s sad to think there could potentially be discharges happening across the land that stops people enjoying them.
She said that the big difficulty for the public was that live data on sewage discharges isn’t widely available at the moment (Thames Water being the exception), so in most places, the safest thing to do, would be to avoid swimming downstream of a known outfall point, particularly if there’s been recent rain.
She added that if all water companies made their live data available, it would be much easier for the public to identify safer water spots for them to enjoy swimming, paddling, or fishing on their holidays.
The shocking graphic lays bare more than 380,000 spills of about 2,350,000 hours of treated sewage and overflows of untreated sewage in England and Wales in 2022 alone, and it doesn’t even include all the data, with the charity still waiting for spill data from Hafren Dyfrdwy (Severn Trent) in Wales and the map accounting for 15,210 of 16,791 British storm overflows.
It includes popular seaside destinations, beauty spots and once-celebrated rivers.
The water industry issued a grovelling apology on Wednesday for dumping millions of tons of sewage in British rivers amid widespread public fury over the ongoing scandal.
In Bristol, water lovers have been left disgusted at the state of the river.
The Avon, which flows through the maritime municipality, is tracked by 85 sewer storm overflows along its main stretch.
They have overflowed at least 1511 times in the last year, for more than 1,523 hours, and one, just off the harbour’s mouth out at sea, has spilled 99 times in the last year for almost 750 hours.
And people are saying that this is an absolute disgrace.
Our Government are letting thousands of migrants into our country and accommodating them, yet they can’t pay out money for new sewage treatment plants, or reservoirs to cope with the increased demand – before you know it we will be going back to the 18th century where everyone chucked their sewage out onto the streets.
There should be some sort of penalty for these companies, perhaps some jail time, and our Government needs to do something about this, but then those who voted in the Tories cheered and applauded and then they sold off everything that was British and that wasn’t nailed down. They’re not cheering now!
Let’s face it, who wants to go on holiday and while they’re eating at a cafe or restaurant along the shoreline they see raw sewage and dead sea life pouring in, that would be repulsive, and it would definitely put one off their food. Mark my words, this is going to affect a lot of businesses and tourism around the country.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 