SEWAGE. AN IMPORTANT ISSUE BECOMES MORE IMPORTANT WHEN UNTREATED. GLOBAL POWER AND MONEY FOR DIVIDENDS?

 Last year, government ministers demanded water industry executives create a plan to tackle the mounting crisis of untreated sewage in Britain’s rivers and seas. To pacify growing public anger, water companies offered an apology, pledging to invest £10bn over the next decade and promising to reveal an “unprecedented plan” to “put it right”. The plans were supposed to be published in August, but four months later publication has been delayed yet again, even though the problem is getting worse.

The figures are nauseating. In 2022, 384,000 discharges of raw sewage were reported by water firms. Thames Water alone spilled at least 72bn litres of sewage into the River Thames over the last three years – about 29,000 Olympic swimming pools. Campaigners have urged the water industry, regulators and the government to deal with the growing crisis in the country’s waterways but have been met with little more than unfulfilled commitments.

For today’s newsletter, I spoke with Guardian environment reporter Helena Horton about why the water industry still has not dealt with Britain’s chronically leaky pipes. That’s right after the headlines.