Sewage In Our Rivers ~ The Ugly Truth
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- Опубліковано 17 вер 2023
- 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:
www.museumoflondon.org.uk/dis...
London's Next Super-Sewer:
www.tideway.london
Thames Water:
www.thameswater.co.uk
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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.
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#sewage #rants #thames
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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.
Well said. Privatisation of utilities was a disaster for everyone.
It wasn't a disaster for everyone, the shareholders do well out of all the privatised companies. The privileged few always do well . Same as asset strippers and hedge funds . Man's greed is limitless .
You can buy shares 👍 you will be able to retire in no time 🤦
Except (eventually) for telecoms, but it did put us back about 10 or 20 years.
Other than that fully agree.. tried catching a train lately?
The script for the video was absolutely genius. I think you get a distinction in creative writing too.
The screen should be on the property. Make the person that flushed the problem pay for the problem.
@Mr.Unacceptable That is actually a great idea.
some of the turds i squeze out are giant, how would they get trough the screen?
@@MrMakosiyou lob those ones into the neighbours garden.
@@CryptoRoast_0I sometimes think that I'm a pretty clever individual, but then I read youtube's comment section. Really I humble myself by standing in the face of such intellectual gems, strewn about by my superiors in the realm of thought and processing. What a brilliant idea, unconventional yet solving many issues that come with the strife between our society and our individual egos in the spaces they occupy and share.
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.
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 !
Yeah but the individuals getting these obscene bonuses are paying huge amounts of tax back into the system. It's not like they can avoid that in any way, shape or form... 🤔😅
@@DjDolHaus86 i doubt its individuals probably investment funds like Reese mogg company normally head office over seas, thus no tax paid and then given out has a 0 % interest loan to individuals/familys.
@@koffee3816 I believe he's being sarcastic.
Yep, and when they've run the company into the ground privatising profits, even when in reality they're making hand over fist losses, dump it back into public ownership to socialise the costs to put it right. Honestly, we're all mugs for putting up with it, but nearly everyone is blind to the idiocity which is this country. Small boats and American bullies... clearly a bigger issue 🤷🏻♂️
@@DjDolHaus86 😂🤣😂
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!
Didn't Thames sell off over 20 reservoirs for building land, for the greater good of their shareholders?
NOW they tell us we are in an area of Water Stress. Think Thames are mainly French owned?
@@42RHD Complicated Wikipedia
"acquired by the German utility company RWE in 2001."
Then the UK operation was sold to "Kemble Water Holdings Ltd, a consortium led by the Australian Macquarie Group" in 2006.
Then Kemble sells off bits, so ownership in 2023 is
OMERS, a Canadian pension company (32%),
UK Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS - 20%),
Infinity Investments (a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority) (10%),
British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (9%),
Hermes Investment Management (manager of the BT Pension Scheme) (9%),
the China Investment Corporation (9%),
Queensland Investment Corporation (5%),
Aquila GP Inc. (5%), and
Stichting Pensioenfonds Zorg en Welzijn (2%).
**** None of them would really care about more than realising their investments.
And the Telegraph notes
"The GMB union said that 25 reservoirs were sold off, on several occasions to developers, since the late 1980s."
@42RHD don't know if was as many as 20 but yes.
60 billion + has been sent to shareholders since privite with a few other billion on bonuses.
I hasten to point out that not all water companies are structured the same way and not all of them are owned by diaboloical fiends like maquarrie investments and the like. Some of the water companies are very well run and have not been asset stripped at all. But this is often the trouble with right wing ideology..... it is not though through, the "free market" dogma would naturally have always led to this as some water companies have made wiser decisions than others in the long run, where in practice its not an industry where failure is acceptable.
The trouble with making them public again is that they would be further politicised and decision making would go through politicians rather than industry experts. You might think the present situation is bad (and sure it could be loads better) but it was politicians that decided to privatise the water companies without thinking what that might look like, furthermore looka t how political engineering projects are constantly mismanaged (HS2, the millenium dome, cladding on buildings, schools falling to bits, state of NHS hospitals) just look at how well your local council deals (or doesnt deal with) potholes and crime. Would you really want your water services in the hands of those idiots? Some of the current cabinet are pigshit thick and ignorant.
Yes the financial world is amoral and has its downsides, but it keeps water out of the hands of nobbo politicians who would just add exponentially more shit into it.
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. 😀👍🏴
It would be a shame because united we stand, divided we fall. The United Kingdom is stronger as a result even if it's being run by out-of-touch elitists in London. We don't like them either.
No country is immune to bad politicians. Only recently you had Nichola sturgeon who was unable to define what a woman was. I'm not sure what humza yussaf is like but it wouldn't surprise me if he was an incompetent sausage as well.
💯
I'm English and I want Scottish independence! (my dad is Scottish though, so I could make a wee claim =D )
Vote with your money and energy more vicariously
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.
Yes. When you read into it the mass dumping has only really started since the EU regulations were removed in the mass slash and burn.
@@purplemonkeydishwasher5269 The programme I mentioned started 10 years ago or so. Nothing to do with EU regs.
nice try. @@purplemonkeydishwasher5269
My own MP abstained on the sewage dumping vote (Ian Levy, Blyth Valley) and a week later accepted a £600 payment from the local water company. Corruption runs through the whole of the system.
@@jackking5567 Brutal. Shows the level of these folk. Imagine sacrificing your morals for that petty amount.
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.
Little known fact about British law; the developers have a "right to connect" yes thats correct a RIGHT to do so. The water companies cannot say no! In theory the developers are meant to pay for any detriment or pay for upgrades to the sewerage system if it is found to cause issue, but the water companies are on the back foot and proving that it will be the case is extremely expensive and requires top-end computer systems, exensive software and trained employees to use it.
The ebst thing to do is to close that legal loophole which is a hangover from the earliest days of sewerage law and was there to incentivise people to connect to the sewers in the first place instead of just chucking buckets of shite out the window.
Spellbinding, Roger - a brilliant listen. Feels like we're going down the pan in more ways than one! Thank you, as ever👍
You can't expect anyone to remember Mr Bazalgette in an era where John Snow is only known as a GOT character...
I'd love it if give us a proper tour and history of the London sewage system sometime, it really is an underated marvel.
They're always looking for fatberg miners.
Start with The Tyburn
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
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.
This should really be on the BBC at prime time instead of the Oneshow!
Anything is better than the One Show
@@SkillBuilder I rest my case then lol 😂
The (((BBC))) is not a friend of the nation, they actively work to destroy and replace it with other things, which is obvious if you can recognise what is being done and why.
GB news would be the better option. The BBC is now a liberal/lefty soup of insanity.
Cheers Roger. This and the school concrete issue were presented in such a digestible way, plain and simply what is happening and why. Would be great if every Briton was more aware of what goes on with issues as vital as our polluted waterways. More seriousness is also needed on restricting hazardous chemicals which have potential to be released into watercourses and damage ecosytems.
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 !!
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.
The human race as a lot to answer for.
I am a drainage engineer working on both infra and non-infra wastewater projects, I enjoyed this comment!
Also worth mentioning
During a rain event , where trillions of gallons of rain water runs off roofs and down road Gullies into the sewer , which then simply can’t cope with the shear volume of water and it has to discharge it into the nearest stream or river , the sewage is extremely extremely diluted , it’s not RAW sewage , it’s sewage that’s mixed massively with rain water
To put this into perspective
Raw sewage has a ammonia reading of around 40 to 50mg / litre ( nh4 )
I last week sampled a overflow during a rain event and the ammonia reading was 1.7mg / l ( this was leaving a sewer going down a overflow pipe to the river )
I then swamped up stream and down stream of the river of where the overflow pipe discharged into the river
Upstream was 0.4g and down stream was 0.4g
So no impact at all on the river
People forget this Raw sewage is massively diluted during a overflow from a rain event
That would be somewhat reassuring, but water companies have been dumping untreated raw sewage directly into rivers and streams even when there isn't rain. Campaigners have uncovered loads of instances but DEFRA haven't, because have been stripped down so much by austerity they can only monitor a tiny minority of outlets.
This is an Island as well, imagine the sheer filth if we where landlocked.
The French government is persuing a legal case becuase of all the untreated shit we have been dumping off our south coast is affecting bathing water quality across the channel, where they actually value nature.
It's an absolutely filthy disgrace.
In the water company i work for i dont know of any cake being incinerated before being spread. Usually the sludge sits in a Path Kill tank for 14days then gets centrifuged into cake. This gets tested for pathogens before being spread.
Also a massive problem are the wet wipes, pumps within towns and villages fail and cause wells to overfill and drain out where they shouldnt! And the amount of new houses being built with little consideration for existing infrastructure
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.
"Vindaloo, down the loo" .... Hilarious and very relevant in every context! 🤣😂😅
I work in a builders merchants and I've lost count of how many times I've been asked for an adapter to put 40mm waste into 68mm downpipe 🤦♂️
We recently had to do this, but it didn't make a difference as the gutter down pipe on the house drained straight into the main sewers with a manhole cover 1 foot away, that's the only drain available at the property as built originally.
My new go to question 😂😂
How many sky hooks have you been asked for?
@@Orgakoyd The problem that you then have (which is the main reason for not doing it) is that there's no trap in a rainwater system so the top of the gutter downpipe effectively becomes a vent pipe which will let smells escape. Not a problem if it's not near a window but still not an approved method as the location of the top of a vent pipe has to be within the regulations.
When we bought our current house, there'd been a history of calling out Dynorod for which locals blamed the previous residents of our house (African-Caribbean and the wife had mental health issues while he was popular). We put a scope down the drains and flushed with dye. Turned out, in 1970s, a side extension had put sewage into the rainwater drain and vice versa. The blockages were due to the sweet old people and their middle-aged daughters next door. Tbf, the chap opposite suspected it was them all along. He's old white English Tory. We're old white British. The culprits traced their ownership back to building in mid 1930s. We fixed what drained into where
"There is no second-hand market in used condoms" 😆
I met a para trooper who landed in a sewerage lagoon in Germany whilst on an exercise. A local German rushed up and shouted to him " It is forbidden to swim here"
Thanks for educating us, Mr. Rodger 👍
In accordance with prevailing corporate practices, it is customary for companies to strategically divest their assets before initiating a comprehensive restructuring process, followed by the subsequent reintegration of the organization into the realm of public ownership.
Thank you Sir Humphrey.
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
God bless you Roger, a clear and sound message, sadly I’m not sure those who need to know won’t be watching
Your right ,up here in Scotland we have either have a separate or combined system,more a separate system all rainwater goes into our rivers, always contact your local water board to see what system you have ,before putting new sewer pipe into the system
As someone who was once directly involved with the industry, I concur with Rodger’s analysis. Baselgette designed the system so that London’s flash flood rainwater was carried into the Thames, rather than flood the streets and property. So accusations of greedy private water companies deliberately polluting natural watercourses to save money is not fair, nor accurate.
The problem of rag and fatbergs causes huge problems and is entirely caused by the public not taking any notice of repeated TV and radio appeals. IMHO things like wet wipes and nappies should be water soluble and non soluble variants banned from sale! Restaurants that flush hot fat down sewers should be sent a bill if they can’t demonstrate that they are doing all they can to mitigate such discharges.
In the case of Thames Water, they have been investing billions in the Tideway super sewer, which has been dug deep below the Thames. When complete, the overwhelming majority of flash flood water will be diverted into this new infrastructure, away from the storm outfalls into the river.
I agree that privatisation of our utilities was a huge mistake and one that will be extremely costly to reverse. How could any sane, responsible politician, or business manager allow vital assets to be sold off to foreign companies, who have no concern about the impact these changes have on the people of this country!?? From waste disposal, to airports, to roads, to energy, the chinless wonders and looney lefties in Westminster betrayed ordinary folk!! So don’t blame the people running privatised utilities, blame the Westminster elite - they repeatedly screw up everything (Tory, or Labour - they are each as bad as each other!!!)
Just as a matter of fact, the 'water' in an STP is called 'Liquor' and the finished liquors are called Treated Sewage Effluent (TSE). And separate systems have been required on new builds since the 1970s.
I wonder if the politicians take the trouble to ask the water companies, if they can cope with the extra demand placed on them due to immigration and all the extra building work etc etc needed to for them ?
You Sir, are a gem. 💎 Thanks for the informative video. 👌🏻
Makes me wonder why ppl pay for a BBC Licence when UA-camrs are producing such high quality content
Hello Roger , excellent content as usual 👍,every time I watch one of your videos I learn loads of interesting stuff,keep up the good work,many thanks.
Ha! Maggie did the same for council housing. I have now diverted my roof run off into water butts and these overflow into my garden. My shower also empties onto my garden.
"Happy days for the time team of the future" absolute legend.
I like the way you think Roger. If when they were public companies they couldn’t afford to invest in the infrastructure how could private companies afford to after taking profits for shareholders?. Why do we allow the toffs to sell our Crown Jewels for a quick buck, never caring about the future? I remember Cameron selling his plan to allow the Chinese to invest in our new nuclear power station that was being made by the French!, alarm bells were ringing in my head and I nothing about any of it. Who remembers being told the m25 tolls would come down once the bridge had been paid for and then instead they sell it off to a foreign company for a quick buck and we still pay a toll. As I get older I get more and more disappointed and disillusioned.
Another brilliant, perfectly argued and presented video about a key infrastructure problem!
Perhaps, Roger, you could look at the infrastructural upgrades that would be required to the electrical supply network, down to street level, to support the mass migration to heat pumps and electric cars that the government says we must have!
You've just gone over what I learnt on my C&G years ago about drains only my course was with the army, that was like a refresher video for me😉 That must be some 50 odd years ago now.
An unexpected but welcome video Roger.
Your accent & voice both are amazing and entertaining. I got a good laugh from listening to you. Also, very clear explanations from you. Very interesting channel. I subscribed
53 years ago... I still remember a model of a sewage works and activated sludge process in the school technical activities wing. I did woodwork (furniture), others did electronics or metalwork. Someone must have had reason to do that project. Always regretted not asking about it
Yes it was not a popular subject. I did cookery because that is where the girls were.
In Australia, the stormie and sewer systems are kept separate.
Most newer estates are in the uk
Say build in the last 40 years are usually seperate
It makes sense, thanks mate@@boyasaka
This was such a great informative video, thanks SkillBuilder
Whenever I build an extension these days they more than likely make you put in a soak away. Victorian buildings where I live have their waste and rainwater going straight into the sewers.
Like someone else has said, these videos like the RAAC? blocks video gives us not in the game folks a simple to understand explanation to infrastructure back stories that we would never get to find out otherwise so thankyou Roger..
I understand why water was privatised. It allows long term investment without government interference in the budget. It also allows water charges to be increased to pay for system improvements without the government being directly accountable. The downside though is that there is no competition for water and private monopolies for essential services are never a good idea. Also allowing foreign ownership is a very bad idea.
If you have a business, you can from a few years ago , buy your water from any water company , eg if you live in London you can buy your water from Yorkshire water , ( just like you can buy you electric or gas off many of the companies )
This is comming in the next few years to residential properties ( not just commercial like at present )
@@boyasaka Accounting trickery. The water, gas or electical energy comes from the same place through the same pipes.
@@vylbird8014 of course it does
The same electric comes into my home , no matter weather my bill comes form eon or npower or edf
In a few years time you will be able to switch water providers but yes your water will still come from the same place it does now , be it a bore hole , a reservoir or a water treatment plant ( which sucks it out of the nearby river and cleans it )
Really interesting video mate, my missus wasn’t impressed with me telling her all about poo cakes and sewage systems tho 😂
Your wife has got to know these things, you can't protect her, she is not a child (presumably) and she is a cake maker.
Excellent video Roger!
Great video and rant. Well put.
As a surfer in the north east of England I can tell you that as soon as there’s heavy rainfall we know the seawater will be FILTHY…July this year was particularly bad
That is the Scots chucking their sewage in.
Skilled builder and skilled educator.
Another brilliant presentation!
Wonderful summation.
Similarly, the plastic that all trades leave on the ground at sites, as dust, shavings and particles, that then gets washed into the soil and the drains, eventually making its way into the oceans.
Was thinking of taking up fishing 🎣 unfortunately the only thing you’re likely to catch in a UK river is cholera or hep A! 😬
we only 'need them' because people are not paid enough in relation to house prices and are either too lazy or not stupid enough to work for sod all whereas foreign workers can work 5-8 years in the UK, save like hell and buy a lovely house whence they came = capital drain - and this is an option not open to indigenous UK people who choose to stay. Thatcher knocked itinerant workers on the head by making sure they were persecuted after hundreds of years of tradition which is why our farms don't have that seasonal labour available anymore. We need labour because we have invested far too little in education and like infrastructure. But how long will that go on? Until nothing at all works, because both space and the space for infrastructure are both finite in a country which already has a housing crisis and where a government is suddenly stimying private investors and developers?! And additions and retro-fits are ever more complex and require the energy we are not producing anymore and the use of fossil fuels to carry out the changes at a time where every moron is trying to ban them, seeming to conveniently forget that without them none of us will have food, jobs, transport or heating AT ALL. The UK is in absolute crisis already and taking more people, with all the complications that brings, is sheer suicide.
or a soiled nappy full of 'cake'.
@@gurglejug627 Not a level playing field though. Immigrants get way more perks than indigienous people do. This is for a long planned reason, but can not go into why here due to censorship.
We need more videos like this.
Fantastic Roger moor please, efficiency and profit don't always work together.
Nothing ever privatised runs properly in this country. Utilities are cash cows for foreign investors. Theres massive profit to be made from railways we just need to re-nationalise them. Make the people who work there shareholders then you'll see improvements.
My boss once told me that its perfectly fine to dump used brake fluid or antifreeze down the drain, as long as you leave the tap running while doing it.
Also think about this scenario !!!!
Imagine your sat watching tv and you hear a bang , you jump out and someone has smashed the window of your car and ran off
10 mins the council knocks on your door and gives you a £100 fine for putting glass on the pavement , would that be fair ?? Would you happily pay the fine ??
Well 60 percent of blockages in the sewer are caused by wet wipes
People my the million flush wet wipes down the toilet , they cause a blockage in the sewer and someone’s manhole in there front garden spues out sewage and wipes and poo and durex ,
The water company has to sent a crew out to unblock the sewer , clean up the garden , , then they get fined £7000 for what is known as a external flooding ,
The water company didn’t cause the blockage !!! The customers did
And if the manhole didn’t surcharge , and a customer a few doors down from the blockage ended up with sewage and poo etc comming up through their down stairs toilet like Rodger mentioned he’d seen many a time , this is a internal flooding , water company has to unblock drain , clean up customers bathroom , give customer compensation AND they get fined off the environment agency £24000 for a internal flooding
All cos Susan 5 doors down uses her toilet as a bin
!!!!!
I keep hearing people say that water companies should be nationalised
That would be the biggest mistake ever
Reason
Have you seen the state of the police force , prison service , schools , NHS , the roads , etc etc etc
If water companies were took under government control I swear to god the fish would be belly up in every river / stream in the uk
In recent years , the courts and environment agency have really upped there game , the fines are no longer worth just paying ( instead of spending money on upgrading the network ) the fines are now colossal
And all the water companies are upping there game and rightly so
Also all spills now can’t be covered up like maybe they were in the past , the ENVIRONMENT agency and the public now have access to all the data , if a sewage works or pumping station spills , rain or no rain , the EA is immediately notified
Such a great and informative video.
Thanks, I like your channel. I look at it quite often
Maybe we could work together on some drainage related videos some time?@@SkillBuilder
Great video, missed an opportunity to use the best phrase in the WatSan lexicon: Sparge pipes.
another interesting insight into this storm drain stuff is Steve Mould's video"How to spread hepatitis without leaving your home" video that tells how Hepatitis genome was traced from Netherlands back to Wales because sewage got leaked into estuary where muscles are harvested, quite a mind blowing story but described as clearly as this about the sewage over spill during floods..
Great video as always. You mentioned a that we have a million more people a year in this country. I thought that can't be right so i had a wee look. 500k extra population a year. So fairly close. Anyway am interesting rabbit whole to drop down. Who would have thought poo would be so enlightening
I am sorry to quote the wrong figure but it is difficult to find the truth in those figures.
I read this from the Government web site 'there were 925,000 non-EU long-term arrivals in 2022, ' That is still not a million but I stuck the people in boats on top because they are not included because they may only be temporary and they don't use the loo.
Roger, very educational but very true lack of investment greed. The usual thing it’s always about money such a shame and it’s only a commodity and the public will get screwed again
Enjoyed your video always wanted to become a plumber but left it too late. I’m too old now
I would call it a lucky escape, I often wondered why I chose that course.
VERY well said!!! 👏👏👏👏👏👏
Excellent video. Had a good giggle
I am so glad, there has to be a funny side to most things.
Although I believe in a free market economy in general. I do believe that certain infrastructure should be nationalised to safe guard the peoples interest. Of course no government in the west really wants this. They would be directly accountable and couldn't sell off assets owned by the general public, who may have paid for the infrastructure in the first place.
Nice one Roger.
First rant !!!
PLUMBERS keep joining waste pipes to surface water systems
And they sometimes don’t know it and sometimes do know it
There is tens of thousands of mis- connections all over the uk
Meaning raw sewage is leaving someone’s house and going to the nearest stream / river
Last month while my mate was getting his bathroom re done
Asked me should the plumber be joining the bathroom waste from the basin to the down comer off the roof
I said not really , but If your estate is combined , it goes into the same pipe underground anyway ,
He said , my house is 15 years old , and all down pipes from the roof etc goes into a manhole and goes north and all sewage heads off in different direction
I said you have answered your own question then
So he pulled the bathroom fitter and told him he can’t connect the basin sink to the down pipe from the gutter , fitter said I have to , the soil stack is internally
He phoned his boss and m mate spoke to his boss , only to be told , they fit a bathroom per week and have done for years and years and they always put basin waste into the gutter down pipe !!!!!
Wtf
Crazy plumbers.
Well said !!!
Great vid. Suprised you didn't cover 'grey' water systems and rainwater harvesting, presumably a great way of managing some of the issues you've talked about.?
Hi Deb
The problem is that it is difficult to hold an audience on any video, so, while there is a temptation to cover more aspects we know that on UA-cam most people are gone within 3 minutes of watching any video. I wish that people had a longer attention span but it is not the..............ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
It’s a sorry state of affairs.
Great video, always enjoy a good rant from Roger!
When he rants, he scares my cat out the door.
We recently had an extension built and had to argue with the council/building control to let us use the surface water system for the rain water instead of digging up the garden building a soakaway. We had both sets of pipework running along our property so it made sense to use it. This water ends up in a big pond in the woodland a few hundred yards away.
I don't see why every new house should have 10,000 litre water tank buried in the garden and used for flushing toilets and watering gardens. Why are we using clean drinking water to flush toilets and wash cars with, it's never made sense to me
@@chippyminton8711 It's a good idea, but most new houses have such tiny gardens that there's no room to bury a tank. Even a soakaway has to be a couple of meters from the nearest foundation or road.
Roger, why do trades wash and rinse cement/plaster/paint on the pavement or gutter? I had to ask our trades to rinse on the gravel just so somethings filtering it. I’d love to see a video on this, how to clean up and dispose properly x
We always washed tools out into a barrow or bucket and dispose of in the skip at the yard, I've seen builders with less sense doing their clean up into drains, gullies without a care for the damage they're doing !
Top vid thanks roger !!😷
Our essential services should all be brought back into public ownership. Unfortunately no future government will do it as it will rock the financial sector and also stop their lovely retirement share back handers....
I worked for Leeds City Council main drainage department in the 70's. It was a shit job! 💩🤣
Brilliant thanks
We can't swim in our local river because it's too dangerous due to sewage. Nightmare.
Very well presented Sir! The (literal) crap that some people flush away, not thinking of the consequences doesn’t bear thinking about. Maybe we need a system like that on the continent where the only things you can flush away are human waste - anything else must go in a bin. Does the beg the question though, as our populations increase - so does the amount of waste - so we’ll literally be drowning in the stuff!
I would apologise on behalf of Australia, except that we have the same privatisation bs going on here too.
Low flush toilets are evil... we have a few customers who have 'new vintage' high cistern toilets.... that will dispose of a 3 flusher in one flush (you know you've been there). I had no idea this was all about london
Also, people disposing of non surface water into surface water drains is ILLEGAL, and call the enviro health on them roger.
Roger, what does the sludge lagoon do with the floaters?
They are attacked and brought down by the ones that lurk beneath. This is true of turds and life
Thanks for the doll in the bath, that was nice 😂
Sothern water I believe is owned by a French company & they constantly dump sewerage in the sea and rivers in the south !
Not completely true. Sewers overflow into the sea instead of flooding your house that's the alternative 👍
@@grahammawdsley4864 That's semantics, the reality is with growing populations the infrastructure hasn't kept up with demand. You would think that by 2023 that we wouldn't have to pour sewage into rivers, lakes and inland coastal waters these days. Saying to Sparky that the other option is sewage backing up the pipes and flooding his house is the same argument the water companies might make. It's total lack of under investment from these companies and I daresay money should come from the developers as well because every new house built adds to the problem.
The easiest answer from the water companies is we need to raise everyones bill to pay for these upgrades but many people including Feargal Sharkey reckon they've already had enough money to upgrade the system so why should we pay twice ?
Absolutely no competition in Scotland. Only one large publicly owned water company, called Scottish Water. All rivers and beaches are perfectly clean, due to 30 years of investment and upgrades. No profits, no fat cats, no dividends.
I would suggest you revisit this statement, working as I do in this industry in Scotland.
@@coop_coop007 what do you disagree with ?
@@gordonmackenzie4512 You can only know how much has been discharged if you monitor the outffalls. In Scotland we only monitor a very limited number of sites. Sub 5% of our outfalls which have the possibility of foul water incursions. Rest of UK monitors somewhere around 80%+. These are not directly comparable figures for technical reasons, but the range of difference is very high providing a guage to measure with. If you don't look, you cannot see.
fats and rice are the most common culprit i've found. the two together form a fantastic glue which is precisely what you don't want in a sewer
Roger. “ The Grass”. LOL
ONE MILLION NEW PEOPLE ARRIVING EVERY YEAR ? Probably an under estimate, but IS THIS MADNESS SUSTAINABLE, no matter how good the sewage technology ? OF COURSE NOT. IT HAS TO STOP.
It's not as high as it sounds - the UK population growth rate hovers around 0.5%. Some years a little more, some years a little less. That's the net change: Births minus deaths plus immigration minus emigration.
We may get a million people moving into the UK each year, but we also get half a million leaving.
Every home i have ever owned, i have separated the rainwater runoff from the black and grey water drainage system. I had plenty of education in Europe when i was a child, hence my stance on this subject.
I really appreciate your vlog on this subject.
As for the water companies, well..........
Politics have ensured that plenty of cso's are fed as much sh1t as we are.
I refuse the believe that the French rivers are cleaner, just like they didn’t have BSE they had JCB
Ha ! I remember JCB,
That is so good, now my favourite thing. Barb
I think it's gone down to 4 litres now to flush a toilet. Just been working on a site in South London and the cisterns were 4 litres with a small and big flush, the biggest being 4 litres.
Which to my mind is way too small. Some of the flush mechanisms were really poor too.
Why should she receive 1.6million £ of the UK people's money..
This should be illegal...
I will not pay more than one pound per day for water rates..
The whole UK population should not pay more than one pound per day for water rates...
And I was just reading about the massive alge on Lough Neagh from pollution. Supplies 40% of Norther Ireland's drinking water. Yum.
Lots of lovely eels in there.
Roger, it is a real mess Lough Neagh shoreline is stew of gunk, which causes harm to humans. We just have had too much focus on the Agri sector zero on water management. Sprinkle the muppet show called Stormont leaves you in big Trouble. A lake the size pf the Isle of Man is green. Shameful mess.