What we can do to reduce sewage dumping & improve water quality
Misconnections
Many people are unaware that there are separate systems for wastewater and surface rain water believing that everything goes the same way eventually. Domestic misconnection is the term used to describe household wastewater ending up in the surface drainage system rather than the sewers. They are often the result of dodgy plumbing and lead to even more sewage in the rivers.
These misconnections are a nationally significant water problem. It has been estimated by Defra that between 0.6% and 2.0% of households in the UK – or 150,000 to 500,000 households – may have some sort of misconnection.
Many of these are above ground connections which are relatively easy to identify and fix but harder to identify and fix cross-connections also exist below ground can also be responsible for sewage mixing with surface water to find out more download our document.
Some research needs to be done to ascertain if there is indeed a misconnection and then it's not totally straight forward getting to the bottom of who is responsible for this.
-
Misconnections which are wholly on private land are the responsibility of the owner to put right.
-
Where a misconnection is outside the boundary (or curtilage) of a property, or occurs after the point where a property’s drains combine with those from neighbouring properties, then this is a public misconnection and is the responsibility of the water company to correct.
-
Where a misconnection has been identified and a householder refuses to correct it, the local authority can decide to take them to a Magistrates Court to enforce the work under the Building Act. The penalties in such a case would involve paying for the cost of the work and legal costs
Most water companies in England and Wales have catchment water improvement projects that include an element of highlighting and tackling misconnections. This type of proactive work typically forms a part of the River Basin Management Plan (RBMP) which water companies work on together with the Environment Agency, local authorities and other environmental stakeholders.
While water companies, in collaboration with local authorities, can do a lot individually in their regions on tackling misconnections, there is also a sector-led national effort on awareness and educational campaign to prevent misconnections from happening in the first place.
The National Misconnections Strategy Group, which has representation from water companies across the UK, runs a campaign called Connectright (www.connectright.org.uk) to give the public information about how household drains should be connected.
One of the key messages of the campaign is persuading the public to use plumbers that are part of the water industry’s accreditation scheme, Watersafe when making alterations to their pipes and drainage. Using an accredited plumber can reassure the customer that the plumber is conversant with WRAS water regulations and the risk of misconnections. It remains the case that the majority of plumbers do not come with this reassurance: only 5,500 plumbers are Watersafe accredited, out of an estimated 84,000 working in the UK to find out more visit www.watersafe.org.uk
Microplastics
Microplastics are microscopic plastic particles which get into the water courses, rivers, seas, food and drink as well as into all wildlife - everywhere. They have just been found in human blood (March 2022). This is not good! Water treatment plants, if working correctly should filter out many of these micro plastics, but as we know, not all waste water gets as far as the treatment plant and not all treatment plants are working as well as they might.
Microfibres are a type of microplastic (particles of plastic below 5mm in size) which are shed into waste water by clothing made of plastic during washing. The majority of our clothes are now made of plastic, polyesters, nylon, acrylic and polyamides and these shed ‘micro fibres’ when we wash them – one load may be shedding as much as 17 million micro fibres into the water course. Friends of the Earth are negotiating with washing machine manufacturers about what can be done.
Clothes (and I’ve noticed, pet bedding), are increasingly made using plastic bottles. This is not so good as it may seem as they shed microplastics during washing.
Friends of the earth suggest the following measures may help:
-
keep your clothes for longer (plastic ones?) and when you buy new, buy natural fabrics like wool
-
The ‘guppy bag’ and ‘cora ball’ claim to capture micro plastics if included in your wash
-
Full loads may create less friction and therefore reduce shedding
-
Washing at lower temperatures (better for environment anyway) may reduce plastic shedding
-
Using lower spin speeds
-
Air drying rather than tumble drying may reduce shedding
Meanwhile, the website Intelligent Living talks about micro plastic filters for washing machines that are now coming available. They describe the ‘planet care’ filter
Apparently 60-80% of fibres are screened. The filters last only 20 washes (£35-40 per filter!) for a family of 4. The filter uses the electrical charge of the fibres to filter them out after which the filter can be returned to the manufacturer for reuse. Planet care filters works on a membership model whereby you get free postage for a pack of multiple filters that you box up and return when they have been used and, again with free postage You then receive another box. The filter is external to the washing machine, fitted on the side. It looks easy to fit but wouldn’t work unless you have space at the side of your machine.. Many people with fitted washing machines don’t have this space. Again, the manufacturer is negotiating with washing machine manufacturers, presumably, long term, filters will be internal.
Flea & Worm Treatments
There 10 million dogs and 11 and half million cats in the UK and that’s a hell of a lot of worm and flea treatments, some of which are ending up in the biosphere, causing harm.
Many worm and flea treatments now come as an easy to administer (and ever growing in popularity) ‘spot-ons’. Spot-on treatments are finding their way into watercourses, polluting rivers and poisoning aquatic life.
The most harmful active ingredients are imidacloprid and fipronil.
Imidacloprid is a neonicotinoid and in case you don’t know, neonicotinoids are responsible for the collapse of bee populations amongst other ecocides.
Neonicotinoids are completely banned in farming in the EU (and still in the UK) they are now only permitted on companion animals and for use indoors.
Fipronil is probably the other most toxic chemical currently used in companion animal parasiticides in the UK. Both Imidacloprid and Fipronil are particularly damaging to water courses.
A recent study cited in the 2021 bva-bsava-and-bvzs-policy-position, found fipronil and imidacloprid at levels exceeding chronic toxicity in English rivers. The study postulated that these chemicals were likely to have come from household drains because of people washing pets they have recently treated with spot-on.
What you can do:
-
Only treat for fleas and worms if your pet has fleas and worms.
-
Check around the base of the tail for flea dirt. Wiping down with a damp, white cloth will show up black flea dirt
-
Do regular worm counts by sending your pets poo to a lab such as www.wormcount.com and only treat if you get a positive result.
-
-
Don’t use stop on treatments if your dog regularly swims or you regularly wash them
-
Don’t join your vets health care club if it involves monthly flea and worm treatments!
-
Consider alternative natural treatments. There are effective natural agents to treat our pets. Although these can be more hassle to use than the pharmaceuticals and probably not as effective for a full on infestation, they work very well as a deterrent and treat a light infestation. For a more detailed document click to download.
Less paving
If you are going to pave your garden/car parking area, do so with something permeable and ideally put a ‘soakaway’ in. Soakaways are holes filled with rubble, topped by a drain which allows water to permeate. They can be constructed under patios and car parking areas, and will stop so much water entering storm drains which may then overflow into water courses.
Rainwater Harvesting
Harvest rain water in a water butt by tapping into your gutter down pipe. This water won’t then contribute to any overflow and you can use it for watering the garden etc. Although this may not be critical unless you have a ‘misconnection’, you can also tap into your ‘grey’ water drain pipe exiting your bath and /or shower. This shouldn’t be directed towards the storm drains (unless you have a ‘misconnection) so won’t directly affect waste water entering water courses but will reduce water use over all.
