• unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 day ago

    to deposit or dispose of waste in a way likely to pollute land or water

    Its not “likely” at all tho, because the drain leads to a water treatment plant that constantly deals with literal feces…

    • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      It’s the UK. It’s a big scandal at the moment that most of the drains lead to rivers, lakes and the sea with only a small fraction of sewage actually being processed before being released from the processing plant. The fines for not processing the sewage were smaller than the costs of building and running treatment plants, so the water companies have just been paying the fines and giving all the money they were paid to build the treatment plants to shareholders as dividends. As no one’s broken any laws they haven’t already nominally been punished for, there aren’t any realistic and politically tenable solutions unless billions of pounds can become magically available.

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 day ago

        Well thats fucking outrageous. That means the UK is constantly flooding the ocean with tire rubber, oil and gasoline, dropped trash, fecal matter from animals, etc

        • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Even if nationalised, our water infrastructure still needs hundreds of billions of pounds investing in it to bring it up to an acceptable standard, and the government doesn’t have the money and has other priorities to spend it on if they magically got a surprise pile of cash. The only financially viable way to fix the problem in a hurry would be to seize past dividends from water company shareholders to cover the cost of doing the things the water companies were supposed to be doing (which would conveniently tank the share prices and make nationalising the water much cheaper), but lots of pensions are propped up mostly by water shares, so doing that would plunge lots of pensioners into poverty, which isn’t politically viable as the government’s already in enough trouble for perceived being mean to pensioners, and they can’t afford to support more impoverished pensioners.

    • BananaTrifleViolin@piefed.world
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      1 day ago

      That is incorrect - there are 2 water drainage systems in the UK. Surface water / rain goes into the surface system and that flows freely into the water table untreated (rivers, lakes etc). It is not designed for dirty water.

      The sewage system is totally separate - that is for contaminated water (toilets, sinks) and that goes to sewage treatment plants. It should be treated before it is released into the freshwater system.

      So yes, it IS polluting the fresh water by putting things into the rain drainage system.

        • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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          17 hours ago

          I’m not sure if it’s an admirable trait to double down on your ignorance, but I’m kind of impressed by your willingness to do it in front of everyone.

    • wischi@programming.dev
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      1 day ago

      I don’t know the situation in the UK but some countries have separate drains depending on if it’s waste water or just a regular rain water drainage. Rain water drainages are often not treated in any way (because why, it’s rainwater anyway) but waste water is processed in treatment plants.

      • fluxion@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        It’s not just rainwater once it’s made it’s way from the streets and into the gutter though… i would hope there’s some sort of treatment

        • Thalion@lemmy.ca
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          1 day ago

          There is not. Obviously I can’t speak for every city in the world but any I’m familiar with either flow back to natural water sources, or to storm ponds to slowly evaporate/become ground water

    • foo@feddit.uk
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      1 day ago

      They are supposed to, except that the water companies just chuck half of into rivers, untreated, to protect their profit margins, and until very recently got away with it scot free.

      • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        Is this a UK specific problem? In most countries water treatment are municipal services paid for by either taxes or levies.

        • foo@feddit.uk
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          1 day ago

          It’s privatised. It’s paid for by taxes, but most local authorities put it out to tender and private companies bid for the contract. So, ultimately, some public money ends up in the pockets of shareholders.