Campaigners criticise trade effluent system

(by Karma Loveday)

Activists River Action and Watershed Investigations have challenged the system that governs trade effluent, following a joint investigation. This is waste handled by water companies from industrial customers such as factories, power stations, pharmaceutical plants, hospitals, abattoirs and waste facilities.

The criticisms covered two principle points: 

• Risk of environmental harm – industrial waste can include substances such as PFAS, solvents, flame retardants, pharmaceuticals, cyanide, chromium, cadmium and mercury, and yet sewage treatment works are primarily designed to treat domestic sewage using biological processes. Waste that survives treatment can be discharged into rivers, lakes and seas as treated effluent or spread on agricultural land as sludge. 

• Lack of regulation and oversight – The investigation said no regulator oversees individual trade-effluent consents, and there is no central national register. This leave water companies in the position of deciding what they can accept, while also charging for the service, which creates a financial incentive to accept the waste. River Action and Watershed Investigations cited the following figures from last year: revenue worth at least £340m, from 26,131 trade effluent consents allowing for up to 607.6bn litres of industrial wastewater to enter sewage treatment works. 

  
  

Amy Fairman, head of campaigns at River Action, said: “Industrial polluters are using the public wastewater system as a cheap way to dispose of chemical waste, while water companies can profit from accepting that waste without necessarily providing adequate treatment or transparency about what happens to it. Polluters must be held accountable, and the public has a right to know what industrial chemicals are entering our sewage system, how they are treated, and where they ultimately end up.”

In a separate investigation, Watershed – this time in partnership with Unearthed, the investigative arm of Greenpeace – used Environment Agency data to identify that trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) was found in virtually all rivers and groundwater tested in England. TFA is a type of PFAS, and the campaigners pointed to evidence from animals that indicates the chemical can impair fertility and harm unborn babies. They pointed out that no specific limits for TFA in surface water or groundwater currently exist in the EU or UK.

• River Action has been given permission to intervene in the judicial review concerning the protection of Lough Neagh from pollution. The case has been brought by local eel fisherman Declan Conlon against Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. It challenges aspects of how Northern Ireland’s water environment is being protected.