According to a recent report from The Rivers Trust, ‘No single stretch of river in England or Northern Ireland is in good overall health.’ At the end of February, for instance, human faeces and toilet paper flooded a chalk stream and a road in Norfolk.
Besides the discharging of raw sewage, there can be pollution by plastics or chemicals, especially ‘forever chemicals’ that take over a thousand years to degrade. All this has drastic implications for aquatic wildlife and human health.
Water companies are only allowed to discharge sewage into waterways in special circumstances, but it happens far more often: because, of course, it costs money to act in an environmentally-appropriate way.