Can someone explain why are rivers and beaches are full of shit?

[ArseInTheCoOpWindow]

Is it Brexit? It’s happened so fast. 5 years ago we went to Cornwall and the seas were lovely. Now l keep reading pollution is being pumped into the sea.

Is it the water companies? Too much rain? The government🙄

Im 60, l vaguely remember this in the past 70’s/80’s. But not like this?

Or is it a perfect storm of everything?

And nothing to do with new estates building which can't be supported by the old sewerage system

Surprisingly large parts of the network are still Victorian, with patch repairs and the odd project along the way.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingjune2023

Only 5,000 so far this year? That’s extremely low. What kind of immigrants are you talking about?

Oh you want more? I hope you're paying for them.

You quoted the wrong number

Maybe you should correct yourself.

Are you following me?

If you’re going to argue, at least argue with what has been said and not with what you would like me to have said.

So is it 5,000, 50,000 or 500,000? Do you know the difference?

How about the fact that the population grew because people’s life expectancy increased so much? Can you accept this or are you just going to get stuck on ‘people coming in’?

No, but you're posting on an internationally read forum and a trending thread on that forum

Millions have the opportunity to read this and fact check you.

I was here first!

But you said 5000 migrants when clearly you meant 508,000. Unless people who have emigrated here don't shit

Birth rates are falling. People can't afford children and/or suffering with infertility. The population is being artificially boosted to help keep GDP steady. Are you really going to tell me that boomers living too long is causing infrastructure to crumble?

So how many people have come to the UK then?

I agree that an increased population is putting pressure on our outdate infrastructure.

But get your facts right about the numbers - otherwise it looks like you might be blaming people coming here on the boats - and I am sure that was not your intention

Maybe you should leave me alone instead of following me on different threads just to harass me.

So no answer then?

You do know how an internet forum works?

If you say something on a thread, then people will answer it.

And if you say something on several threads, then the same person may answer it.

Heck, you said 5000.

Why 5000?

We had 508,000 people coming in to the UK last year.

I bet that worries you. And won't you think of the shit they produce

As a child I thought the smell as we drove near to the beach was seawater and seaweed. it's only as an adult I know it was sewage! (1970s)My family didn't disillusion me! 😂

You have to wonder how easy it would be to tackle the pipes that take the sewage overflows to the rivers and sea?

Surely there could be technical means to do something with those pipes. You don't need to make the water ultra pure - but you could do filtration and potential sterilisation to make the water clean enough.

But I guess there are a lot of pipes

As many pp have said: lack of investment, prioritise profits/divi immediately over long term planning, and combined sewer systems don’t help. Coupled with a lot more available data and monitoring so the public now know about it in a way that was much less visible in the past.

It would have helped if 50 years ago all new builds were regulated to split out surface, grey and dirty waste to keep the load in the (old) sewers lower and divert clean water straight to rivers. Instead they link into existing infra which can barely cope and over tops capacity in heavy rain. Another bug bear of mine is why new builds carried on going up with poor insulation, no solar panels and non porous drives etc - we knew the issues years ago but let them carry on throwing up homes to maximise profit.

This is worth a listen - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001wrhm?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile