Sewage into the sea? Still a problem in the UK

To give you an idea of the scale of our sewer system in the UK, every day we flush nearly 11 million tons of raw sewage down our toilets. This is 77 million tons per week, or 4,004 million tons a year. That is just shy of half a billion tons of raw sewage, just in the UK, channelled through nearly 400,000km of sewer systems. We are clearly a dirty bunch, and it is not exactly something we can decide not to do. Unfortunately, despite having nigh on half a million kilometres of piping lying underground waiting for our outpour, it appears that is still not enough to protect our beaches.

There is such a book as the Good Beach Guide. The cynic in me says that the Good Beach Guide should be burnt alongside a thousand other guides that are by turns timid, pointless and overtly acerbic towards places/people/events/things I like. Getting past that for a moment, it is of some concern that the BBC recently reported (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8061242.stm) that this year, out of 777 beaches tested by the aforementioned Guide, only 370 were recommended. This was a drop of 74 since 2008, the biggest annual fall in the Guide’s 22-year history.

Now, it may amaze you to know that the Good Beach Guide has kept going for 22 years… and also that our beaches in the good old UK are getting dirtier. The blame was placed on heavy rain which drove raw sewage (a.k.a. shit) petro-chemicals (a.k.a. oily shit) and farm waste (a.k.a. horse shit) into the sea.

No need to pay for expensive sewer tours these days. Head to the coast instead.

No beating about the bush here people – this means that at some point on a holiday at the coast, you are swimming in shit. Heavily diluted, barely detectable shit, but shit nonetheless. So how does heavy rain factor into this? The problem is caused by Combined Sewer Overflows, or CSOs. CSOs are utilised when the combined overflow of storm water and domestic sewage water exceeds the capacity of the UK sewage system. When the overflow mechanism kicks in, the sewage is directed into streams, rivers and seas to prevent the excess flowing back into the main system and backing up through our toilets. A fair cop, you might argue, until you realise that over 500 of these CSOs discharge directly on to or near UK beaches. Directly on to. That’s enough to put the seagulls off their chips, and, to forgive the pun, a mere drop in the ocean compared to the over 20,000 CSOs in total in the UK. This means, during periods of heavy precipitation, there could potentially be any number of these 20,000 CSOs discharging sewage into what would otherwise be clean water, and if you think that this might be a once a year event, think again. In the river Thames alone, it is estimated that there is at least one occurrence of CSO discharge per week.

No beating about the bush here people – this means that at some point on a holiday at the coast, you are swimming in shit. Heavily diluted, barely detectable shit, but shit nonetheless. So how does heavy rain factor into this? The problem is caused by Combined Sewer Overflows, or CSOs. CSOs are utilised when the combined overflow of storm water and domestic sewage water exceeds the capacity of the UK sewage system. When the overflow mechanism kicks in, the sewage is directed into streams, rivers and seas to prevent the excess flowing back into the main system and backing up through our toilets. A fair cop, you might argue, until you realise that over 500 of these CSOs discharge directly on to or near UK beaches. Directly on to. That’s enough to put the seagulls off their chips, and, to forgive the pun, a mere drop in the ocean compared to the over 20,000 CSOs in total in the UK. This means, during periods of heavy precipitation, there could potentially be any number of these 20,000 CSOs discharging sewage into what would otherwise be clean water, and if you think that this might be a once a year event, think again. In the river Thames alone, it is estimated that there is at least one occurrence of CSO discharge per week.

Won’t find any mermaids in there.

In fact, the Marine Conservation Society advises that nobody goes for a swim on the beach for 24 hours after heavy rainfall. This is not to say you’re going to swallow a floater if you were to go for a surf after a storm, but there is a reason we have toilets to flush away this waste. The MCS also, it must be imagined rather gravely, reported that on nearly half of Britain’s beaches (43% for the pedantic amongst you) there was a 1 in 20 chance of getting gastroenteritis. Ironically, going for a swim on a shitty beach would make you go shitty. For some beaches, where the bathing water only just passes the minimum legal requirement, the odds increase to nearly one in seven. Despite nearly £8 billion being spent by water companies over the last two decades to improve the quality of the water around Britain’s beaches, the problem still persists.

The counterargument to these survey results is a simple one: would you prefer that the water companies channel the excess sewage straight back into your bathroom? It’s a valid point. And it’s not all doom and gloom. The general consensus is that in the two decades since investment was channelled into this area, overall water quality around the country has nearly doubled (this takes into account all CSOs, not just those around beaches. However, as with most things, almost all the statistics quoted thus far can be massaged in whatever direction is necessary for the parties involved. All that we can be sure of is that there is a definite issue that still needs to be resolved.

There are some novel ideas for what can be done to address the problem. The Telegraph reported this year (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenerliving/4431157/Sewage-could-be-used-to-heat-half-the-homes-in-Britain.html) that ‘up to half the UK’s homes could be heated with gas made from waste food or sewage, according to research by the National Grid.’ This is renewable energy in the broadest sense of the word – if there are people around, there will be energy. It’s a somewhat elegant solution, though the intricacies, particularly on the legislative side of things, are most likely to be circuitous at best.

Ew. Not even Swamp Thing approves, and he lives in a swamp.

Until a pragmatic, widespread and relatively easy to implement solution is thought up which can be actioned by the water companies, further improvement might be some way off. There is little PR traction to be gained from saying ‘we’ve been channelling colossal amounts of shit onto Britain’s beaches but now we’re going to stop’. For hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers whose income or inclinations prevent them going abroad, the  British beach is one of the last glorious legacies of halcyon days when, on the precious few days of summer us Brits might get, we could bask in the glory of the UK coastline. With nowhere in the UK more than 70 miles away from the beach, it’s likely that most of us will visit one at some point during the year, so let’s hope we can soon go home without having to worry about what we’ve been swimming in.

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