What’s caused the big stink over Britain’s sewage?

Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey has set out new plans to improve England’s water quality and clean up its rivers and coastal areas.

The new measures include unlimited penalties for polluting companies to fund river restoration projects, accelerated investment in water infrastructure to reduce the frequency of sewage spills and a long-touted ban on plastic wet wipes.

Coffey’s announcement comes after new data from the Environment Agency (EA) revealed there was an average of 825 sewage spills into England’s waterways every day last year.

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The Guardian said the “alarming figures” led to calls for Coffey to resign – with Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey accusing her of presiding over a “national scandal” – and “added to the pressure on Rishi Sunak to do more to tackle the issue”.

What did the papers say?

Writing in The Telegraph, Coffey acknowledged that people all across the country want to “see this fixed” but claimed it was not possible to “stop pollution overnight, however much I wish we could.

“Much of this will take longer than any of us would like, but that is the reality of replumbing a Victorian sewage system that is long enough to stretch around the world two and a half times,” she said.

But with sewage becoming an increasingly emotive issue, ministers have “come under growing pressure to tackle water pollution and ensure that the industry’s two regulators – Ofwat and the EA – have the resources needed to hold companies to account”, said the Financial Times.

The Environment Agency and water regulator Ofwat are currently investigating six water companies for potential breaches of the law over their discharges, yet campaigners say this is part of a much larger problem that has gone unpunished for far too long.

Three national newspapers are currently running campaigns on the issue – The Telegraph’s Clean Rivers Campaign, The Times’s Clean It Up campaign, and i news and New Scientist’s joint Save Britain’s Rivers effort – meaning “there’s lots of press interest in (currently negative) stories about the problem … but also interest in touting any effective steps and signs of progress that will help these papers eventually claim victory”, said Politico.

What next?

Clean water has become a “politically charged topic” in the run up to May’s local elections, said The Guardian. “Conservative MPs are reporting voter anger about sewage in England’s rivers and coastline, especially in coastal areas.”

Sensing growing public disillusionment over reheated promises from successive environment secretaries, Labour and the Lib Dems have “been trying to pooh-pooh the government’s record” on sewage, said Politico.

Shadow Environment Secretary Jim McMahon described the latest announcement as “nothing more than a shuffling of the deck chairs”, while the Lib Dems pointed out that ministers have been talking about banning wet wipes containing plastic since 2018.

According to Water UK, which represents the water industry, wet wipes flushed down toilets cause 93% of all sewer blockages and cost around £100m a year to clear up. Around 90% of the estimated 11 billion wet wipes Britons dispose of each year contain plastic. They do not break down and over time become snagged and stick together, clogging sewers, leaching microplastics and changing the course of rivers, The Economist reported.

The Mirror’s political editor John Stevens criticised “out-of-ideas Tory ministers” for announcing a proposed ban on wet wipes for the third time in five years.

Yet while a huge majority of the public support a ban, implementing one elsewhere in the UK has proven surprisingly hard. In Wales a proposed ban on plastic in wet wipes has not yet come in effect while a Scottish government consultation has not taken further action.

While welcomed by campaigners, any attempt to introduce unlimited fines on water companies that pollute waterways could also be passed on to consumers in the form of higher water bills, warned i news.

The paper “understands that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) expects water bills to be impacted by the plan, which includes a promise to review the memorandum of understanding between the EA, which regulates the water companies’ environmental performance, and Ofwat, which regulates their finances”.

Setting out what a future Labour government would do to tackle the issue, an alternative bill being put forward by the opposition “would make it a legal requirement to monitor all sewage outlets, create a statutory framework for penalties for those who fail to adhere to those requirements, and oblige the secretary of state to publish a strategy on reducing discharges”, reported Sky News.

Despite the measures having the backing of Water UK, the broadcaster said that “it is unlikely… that the Conservatives will allow time for the bill to be put forward in parliament”.