National Debate on Sewage

178 participants attended Cranfield university’s water science dept. National Debate on Resilience in the Water Sector.

The debate was opened by professor Paul

Hammond from Grenville Turner Studios. With privatisation of the water industry has profit come before honesty? Privatisation has caused problems such as under investment, neglect and more inefficiency such as sewage being leaked into Uk rivers and sea. Professor Tom Stephenson made the point that a national sewage system did not start until the Victorian Times where global warming problems with heavy rainfall etc were much less than they are today. In the UK, 5% of the population are still not on a main sewer. Cranfield, for example, did not get connected to a main sewer until 1947. Concern was expressed on how microplastics are entering the ecosystem through an outdated and ineffective sewage system posing a serious threat to health. Incidentally, an interesting point was raised that the largest source of microplastics come from Tyre degradation from highways surface water run off and from fibres from our washing machines. Tom Stephenson refered to the fact that this year, there were 29 million hours of sewage spillage across 250 locations but no reference to the quality of the spillage in this statistic. There is a lot of censorship and misinformation about sewage. Data and knowledge empowers and there is a need to be more transparent and accurate with statistics and information released in relation to the sewage industry. Some participants entered into an interesting side debate on soil and sewage. Why not use soil instead of water to treat sewage? Sewage in soil breaks down well, saves on water, has less pollution side effects and can be used like a natural fertiliser to improve the condition of soil. Macdonalds already use waterless toilets/ urinals in their outlets. Why not extend this to using soil toilets more and flushing less to save on water and prevent sewage spillage pollution? All contributors agreed that there is a need for a more holistic approach required to solve sewage spillage problems. The government needs to set up and appoint some kind of zsar to achieve this.