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41 news articles

Sewage outfall blocked by wet wipes leading into river

Environment Bill Amendments Passed by Lords – a great first step in strengthening environmental legislation

  • Rebecca Duncan
Last night (Monday 13th September) an amendment to the environment bill was passed in the House of Lords, to place a new duty on water companies and the government take all reasonable steps to ensure untreated sewage is not discharged from storm overflows and requires that they progressively reduce the harm caused by these discharges.

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Person in protective clothing picking litter

Free resources for Key Stage 2 teachers to contribute to landmark plastic pollution study

  • Rebecca Duncan
Plastic is quite literally choking our oceans and everything in them. But where does it all come from and how can we stop this from happening? The Rivers Trust and Preventing Plastic Pollution are calling on primary schools across the country to help leading scientists find out!

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Photo of common kingfisher flying above river

Tabled amendments to Environment Bill provide lifeline for rivers

  • Rebecca Duncan
Several amendments to the Environment Bill have been tabled today which, if successful, represent a significant victory for river health, and indeed river users.

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A range of plastic-free household products such as soap, cotton wool buds, and toothbrushes

5 easy ways to revive your river: plastic-free power

  • Rebecca Duncan
Over the next five weeks, we’re going to help you out by sharing our Five Easy Ways to Revive Your River as part of our River Revival campaign and Take 5 challenge. These are simple, low or zero cost actions you can take at home, in the garden, or at work, to benefit river environments. It’s easy to feel hopeless in the face of the climate and nature crises, but small changes like this can add up to make a big difference. For our first blog in the series we’ll focus on an issue most people are aware of – plastics.

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Simon Evans on a bridge over a river

From the frontlines: Fighting River Pollution on the Wye and Usk

  • Rebecca Duncan
In our CEOs’ newsletter this month we hear from Simon Evans, CEO of Wye and Usk Foundation. The Wye was in the spotlight this month with the Rivercide documentary highlighting the cumulative impact of poorly regulated farming.

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Stock photo - Algal bloom on the Rive Corrib, Galway, Ireland.

Nearly half of Irish Rivers are polluted by nitrogen — EPA

  • Rebecca Duncan
Almost half of Ireland’s rivers have unsatisfactory water quality levels and there was a decline in water quality in 230 rivers recorded in 2020. Nitrogen and phosphorus from agriculture and urban wastewater discharges continue to be the most significant pressures on surface and groundwaters in Ireland, causing a decline in water quality. 

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Silt and soil polluted river

Water and Sewerage Company Environmental Performance Report: Winning slowly is the same as losing

  • Rebecca Duncan
The Environment Agency published its Environmental Performance Report for water and sewerage companies today, assessing nine water companies’ progress against a set of environmental targets from 2016 to 2020. This report shows that the water sector has been moving generally in the right direction over the last 5 years — we see for the first time 5 out of 9 of the Water Companies receiving 4 stars for environmental performance — but progress overall is still too slow and persistent laggards are not responding to public and regulatory pressure.

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Stills PPP7

Earth Day: A little plastic goes a long way

  • Rebecca Duncan
As part of our Preventing Plastic Pollution Project, we’ve launched a new animation ​“A little plastic goes a long way” to demonstrate the journey of plastic waste from source to sea. The video shows a plastic bottle, dropped by a riverbed on a mountainside, which travels all the way down to the seashore.

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Bury River Roach

Sewage update: 2020 spill data added to our map

  • Rebecca Duncan

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Bury River Roach

Measures to reduce harm from sewage pollution to be made law

  • Emily Cooper

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