900,000 hours of human sewage and rainwater flow into UK rivers in just one year – revealed

Untreated sewage is being released into rivers across England and Wales – perfectly legally – and campaigners are calling it a ‘dirty little secret’.

This programme has now obtained exclusive figures showing how often and for how long it’s happening.

Water companies are allowed to release a mixture of rainwater and sewage through special overflow pipes during spells of heavy rain – but we’ve discovered that during 2018 – there were 140,000 spills, lasting a total of 900,000 hours.