Es ist zwei Jahre her, dass die mit Kot übersäten Strände Großbritanniens zum nationalen Skandal wurden. Jetzt ist es noch schlimmer | CNN

The UK’s Victorian drainage system is often blamed for not being able to handle 21st-century levels of sewage. Adding to the pressure, rainwater runoff passes through the same pipes as wastewater from houses and offices. Add in increasingly extreme weather events thanks to the climate crisis, and you have a recipe for overflowing drains.

And yet, that doesn’t quite explain the situation in the UK. According to research from the Royal Society of Chemistry, storm overflows should only enter use when sewers are at six times their usual volume. Yet data from the UK’s Met Office shows that 2021 and 2022 were actually drier than average years, and 2023 was only 11% wetter than average.

Bristow wants “smarter,” climate-proof solutions for what looks set to be a wetter UK climate.

In fact, forget just widening pipes – he wants to prevent rain from even making it as far as the drains. He suggests initiatives such as reforesting areas to hold back heavy rain, or introducing wetlands, as providing a “natural defense.”

None of this will be quick. Surfers Against Sewage is campaigning for an end to discharges in bathing water and high-priority nature sites by 2030. Bristow says they’re in talks with all major political parties in the run up to the UK’s next General Election, which must take place before January 28, 2025.

In the meantime, 2023 saw the government fitting monitors to all England’s storm overflows, so that data can at least be gathered.

The government’s “Storm overflows discharge reduction plan,” published in 2022, sets targets for water companies to “reduce the impact of storm overflows” by 2050.

“It’ll take time to turn the tank around, but the tide is turning,” says Bristow. “We should expect to see things turn around by 2030 if we’re making the right investment decisions now. The time to act is now or never.”