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British water company dumps sewage, claims "no right to swim in the sea"
- Tabular-Iceberg 3y agoAnd we have to give up plastic straws, even those of us who have never littered anywhere in our lives.
- MichaelMug 3y agoImagine a world where ‘no legal duty’ was the default mindset for everyone.
- orionblastar 3y agoIndividuals and corporations quit caring about the environment; Which, is why there is sewage and microplastics in the sea and ocean.
- lanthade 3y agoThere’s been sewage in the seas and oceans for as long as there’s been sewage in proximity to those places. Long before caring for the environment as it’s now understood was even a concept. I’d hazard a guess that on a population density normalized comparison for developed countries there has never been a better time for responsible sewage handling. That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of problems like this article highlights, just that it probably has not been better in the past. Hopefully the UK courts will hand this lady a decisive win and reinforce the idea that industry does have responsibility.
- Turing_Machine 3y ago> There’s been sewage in the seas and oceans for as long as there’s been sewage in proximity to those places. Oh, far, far longer than that. Everyone is ignoring the fact that fish and other sea creatures also shit in the ocean, and were doing so for billions of years before humans even existed.
- masklinn 3y agoCorps quitting caring about the environment implies they ever did. They did not until environmental regulations forced them to, and they ignore those regulations every time they think they can get away with it. And individuals are not much better.
- mr_toad 3y agoIt’s definitely not new and often nothing is done until it directly affects the “great and the good” For example nothing was done about the pollution of the river Thames until it got so bad it affected the business of parliament. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink
- HlessClaudesman 3y agoAnd imagine if every nation pumped their shit straight into the ocean? Poor old UK bosses would have no clean beaches to fly to.
- Turing_Machine 3y agoDo you have any idea how many sea creatures there are, all of whom are shitting straight into the ocean, constantly? Around 2 billion metric tons of them. By contrast, there are only about 60 million tons of human beings. Handwaving any differences in metabolic rates, the ocean animals are outshitting us by a factor of roughly 30, or, to put it another way, if every human turd in the world went straight into the ocean it would only increase the amount of shit in the ocean by around 3%. Of course, the overwhelming majority of human waste does not get dumped directly into the oceans, so it's far less than that.
- lowbloodsugar 3y agoIt is the default for everyone in power. You’re only surprised because you don’t matter.
- ggm 3y agoYet another example of why privatisation of utility functions is privatise profits socialise losses. Of course they believe pumping torrents of shit into the sea is OK.
- kypro 3y agoThis isn't really a public/private thing. Public orgs can also do bad stuff and also try to cut costs to meet budgets. This is a failure of regulation.
- jkfdlksfdskllk 3y ago[dead]
- omnimus 3y agoNon-profit and state owned are not the same thing. State owned companies care about profit.
- jemmyw 3y agonon-profit is still a private entity, just one that doesn't make profits for shareholders. The problem is with the government anyway, not with any other party. Private companies are amoral, they'll do what they do and take their profit. A govt owned service will have internal incentives, as does the non-profit. The government can fix the problem by laying out regulations, i.e. you have to provide this service and this level of environmental protection, otherwise you lose your operating license. In any case, the water system should not be run by private companies the way it is in the UK. Competition provides efficiencies. A system whereby each private company gets an area monopoly isn't going to realize competition - people aren't moving area because of the water company. A more ideal market would have been the local authority owning the water infrastructure and companies competing for a contract to run it / extend it, and if they do a poor job they're out. But of course the idea of owning the infrastructure itself seems against the Thatcherite philosophy that got us here.
- jkfdlksfdskllk 3y ago
- neglesaks 3y ago"you have no right to swim in our sewage, mate"
- mrtksn 3y agoWhat is the libertarian solution for situations like this?
- sherry-sherry 3y agoShit in their office. Peninsula House, Rydon Lane, Exeter, Devon, England, EX2 7HR. They have no right to a shit-free office.
- tempodox 3y agoI thought this situation is the libertarian solution.
- spondylosaurus 3y agoSomething something market forces...
- klyrs 3y agoBuy a boat
- peutetre 3y agoMakes sense. The rising sewage will lift all boats.
- naruhodo 3y agoOr buy a submarine and carry on underturd. You can also get a wetsuit and flippers if you prefer to keep going through the motions.
- sitkack 3y agoBuy a castle, surround it with a moat, and float the boat in a moat of "water".
- anothernewdude 3y agoThe business owners have no right to keep people from dumping sewage on them in public
- Tutitk 3y agoIs there an actual "right to use the sea"? ! My city dumps dozens of wild dogs on beach, they attack people in large packs, and everyone is told to use beach at their own risk. No right to swim on public beach! Or environmentalists dumps dangerous bears into public forrest. They routinely kill people, even roam city streets [1]. But there is no "right to safely use forest". 1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68675794 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68675794
- omnimus 3y agoSlovakia has mountains with population of bears. The bears have always been there nobody has dumped them there. They dont routinely kill people. In recent years there was one death by a bear and one death when lady sliped why trying to run from bear. Those are only recorded incidents in last 50years.
- Tutitk 3y ago[dead]
- ghusto 3y agoHere are several points to consider: - Presuming "no right to swim in the sea" as a given, the point remains that "don't be an evil cuntbag" also isn't a law. If we had to pedantically write every single undesirable behaviour in law books, there wouldn't be enough paper in the world. That's why laws are sometimes broad, to cover arseholes like this, and I hope she finds something to make a good case - Bears can feck right off, but to be fair, they have just _slightly_ more right to the forest than tampons and turds have to the sea, right?
- Sprint9935 3y agoThe British government have been diverging their water quality regulations from the EU’s since Brexit. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/27/england-to-diverge-from-eu-water-monitoring-standards https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/27/england-... Now Britain enjoys some of the worst polluted swimming waters https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/04/uk-waters-are-too-polluted-to-swim-in-but-european-countries-offer-answers/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/04/uk-waters-are-too-pol...
- ghostDancer 3y agoThe joys of the free market.
- bigboy12 3y agoThe Brits thought the world would line up to trade with a free UK based on the fact that they were…the UK???
- tim333 3y agoI think the line was trade will be fine because we'll be like Singapore. Hasn't really played out very well so far.
- ghostDancer 3y agoThey wanted to be Singapore while still being UK and keep doing the same. And no , looks like it has not worked out.
- pjbster 3y agoThis is tech debt, pure and simple. https://news.sky.com/story/down-the-drain-what-went-wrong-with-britains-water-system-12987514 https://news.sky.com/story/down-the-drain-what-went-wrong-wi... The flaws in the sewerage system are fundamental and pervasive. It would be a national multi-generational effort to rebuild it all. It's going to be far cheaper to simply make swimming outdoors illegal and alter insurance guidelines to deny claims for water-borne health issues. Stuff like this appears in UK newspapers all the time. It's just the think tanks putting controversial ideas out there so that public outrage can be gauged. This then informs government policy going forward.
- oliwarner 3y agoThis is what happens when you privatise monopolies. They're not looking at a 100y plan, they're paying shareholders and [unnecessary] c-level positions. What's surprising is that it lasted 35 years.
- dmoo 3y agoLiterally ’enshitification’
- StefanBatory 3y ago... And I wish one could say to them - no right to own a company.
- lostlogin 3y agoWhat a dumb situation they have got themselves into. They have to defend themselves to win the court case - and by doing so they lose the in the arena of public opinion. It’s beautiful.
- jl6 3y agoWorth noting that this dumping is usually done during periods of high rainfall, to avoid sewage backing up through toilets into households. It’s not villains pulling a lever because they’re evil. The fundamental problem is a lack of investment in increasing the capacity of sewer infrastructure, much of which is Victorian-era. This is a good paper on the causes and possible resolutions: https://www.ice.org.uk/media/ecuhx2dc/cso-insights-paper-july-2023-final-11.pdf https://www.ice.org.uk/media/ecuhx2dc/cso-insights-paper-jul... (£56bn of investment has been committed, but 10x that would be needed to entirely eliminate CSOs).
- te_chris 3y agoNo it is pure evil: they opted for dividends over capex for the last 30 years
- ghusto 3y ago> “The law does not recognise such rights, nor does the law impose a duty on South West Water.” Disgusting. I'd like to see that reframed in some similes: I have no legal obligation to save this person in quicksand, so I walked on by _because I am a cunt_.