How Private Water Companies Are Killing Britain’s Rivers | Aaron Bastani

England's not Britain's, but then again to you they are the same thing...

This is unbelievable. Britain has become a laughing stock when many developing countries much poorer than Britain wouldn't dump raw sewage into the sea.

At this rate Britains going to be up to its eyeballs in poop. We all know this scam don’t we, privatise profits, socialise debts.

NATIONALISE!!!! Just sayin'...

The dirty face of capitalism

Great work Adam. Just 2 comments:-
1) We've just had a drought summer, so no excuse of storm water.
2) You said ' nothing to do with Brexit' - I beg to differ. The EU was particularly concerned about this problem, and particularly with British sea quality, naming us 'the dirty man of Europe'. It repeatedly imposed massive fines on this country when we were members, which gave our governments pause - now we're 'free', & gung-ho. Maybe the next pandemic will start with our sea-bathers - vaccine-resistant polio anyone?

Selling off the UK’s water was probably Thatcher’s worst act.

England is the global poster child for everything that goes wrong with rampant privatization of resources. That drive to privatize everything began under Thatcher yet she is still ironically perceived by her compatriots as a great PM and they can't connect the dots between what the country has become and her policies while in charge.

Thought we had a really dry spring and summer this year. I’m sure it wasn’t rain water helping overwhelm the system. Not to mention hose pipe bans this year.

Again - thanks for nothing Thatcher!

My water rates went up by £9 a month. Might think that is fair, but considering that Yorkshire water, my local company, is pissing and shitting so much water out bust pipes, it's a pisstake. To make things worse, there has been a bust pipes on the inner ring road on my route to work, so I am also struggling to get to work on time now

Brexit was pushed through to enable this type of exploitation. Shareholders don't care if your environment is destroyed because they don't live here or if they do it's somewhere unaffected. Like Boris they holiday abroad in luxury accommodation.

I also did some indepth research into the water companies myself and they all say they can't cope with the rain water and sewage. Starting with Thames Water, one case is that in 2021 they dumped 2 billion litres of sewage in a two day period straight into the River Thames. OfWat have fined them £1, because Thames Water said they will stick to their plan of providing a better service by 2025. Having been to the treatment plant in South West London, they have been trying to renew the system since 2016. I asked, what if I didn't pay my bill? They came back with, they will send a debt recovery team around, even though they know they are breaking the law and killing us, wildlife and the environment.

Market forces or dunning kruger at work

What? Are you telling us monopolies charge more money for even worse service? 😱

crab popultions declining exponentially i saw recently, which sucks because some scientists are claiming things keep evolving into crabs (not sure on legitimacy)

While I agree execs are paid WAY too much, it's difficult to slate Sarah Bentley's actions. She only joined the company just over a year ago so you can't blame her for problems in 2016, hasn't paid any dividends to investors, and convinced investors to pump an extra £2bn into Thames Water to deal with infrastructure.

I really want to see some change but what can we do?

...all seems systematic...is it the Huns...?

... maybe someone should dump some sewage, I mean fresh seawater from where those pipes end 😉, in front of 10 downing street... I'd also recommend a car wash with said water as an extra service...

I did an MSc in environmental legislation. I knew that environmental protections would be the first casualty of Brexit for the following reasons:

environmental protections cannot be watered down or abolished by the government (this is what they mean by removing EU red tape)

the EU will and did enforce compliance with heavy fines.

this is why the incidences of water pollution has increased exponentially since 2016.

Not just jail but forced labor cleaning up environmental contamination! Nationalization without compensation to stock holders, they have profited enough. Then go for the wealthiest stock holders with a levy, 50%, 75%, 95% of their wealth...

Is it true to say that the more finance that is concentrated in fewer over-priveleged hands, the poorer our utilities and the rest of us are?

W.T.F.England has become the Mexico of Europe? I'll pass on that tea luv. Thanks just the same. Eat the rich!

Natural monopolies should NEVER be privatised. Their objective should be service not profits.

Sickening as usual

The UK has deterioted into a failed state.

public ownership......where it ought to be. Got to be turned around.

The Houses of Parliament should feel quite at home.

Liv Garfield: "Cleaning up rivers ‘was not on customers’ priority list". No it's paying extortionate bills and making sure investors get bumper returns! Or is that your priority Liv Baby?

Didn't something happen with infrastructure being privatized by Margaret Thatcher, who believed that taking public utilities out of the government payroll, it would "improve" service and accountability (and clearly having the opposite effect?) In turn, many nuclear power plants have gone to waste and people are spending significantly more while subsidizing them?

I don't live there, but it seems to be a major problem with most parts of the world, where the public is used as a cash cow to be exploited while factoring in "cost of doing business" and probably bribing whoever will look the other way. The Mississippi river is considered one of the most polluted river streams (due to industries) on the planet, and the farmed salmon fisheries all over the world are nothing to laugh at (it's gone beyond that.)

Astonishing. There was a campaign,when I was a child,40 years ago,to clean up our waterways. Obviously ignored. Next time,there will be an investigation into fly-tipping,that hasn't changed in 40 years either,it just means much higher tax bills,to fund all the investigations. Have you worked it out yet?

Water companies it's the same cesspool that they put into rivers. This is a crime against humanity. Everything is swept under the rug. 😞

375,000 times a year....ffs when you write it down - it's so unacceptable & ridiculous! 😢

Disgraceful. Privatised and profitable but not enough to be ecological. Don’t want to upset the shareholders.

Water companies waited for Brexit then started releasing raw sewerage. Now they are going to spend billions to mop it up so they can increase the bills to you. All this whilst they have been paying out dividends to themselves and at the same time borrowing money from their friends in the city so they can as individuals can earn interest which is paid by, guess who? Paid by YOU in your increased bill. These are not water companies. They are foreign corporations looting the UK economy.

Let Thames water fold,
Buy the company back for pennies on the dollar

It's called 'corruption'.

Confiscation order.

People need to stop paying them discusting

72 billion £, paid out, in dividends.

Aaron England and Wales is not Britain ! Scotland is fine!

The leaders have fallen. Consumed by greed and self interests. They got the taste for power and they liked the feeling that gave them. They became fearful to loose that power and tried to enslave the little people. They forgot what life on Earth was for. They lost Love.

CEO's and politicians ruining the country and getting paid handsomely for it !

Good ol' kleptocracy

Not just private companies...Scottish water has plenty of spills and only monitors 4% of its spills. The Welsh not for profit Dwr Cymeu has had huge amounts of sewage spills.

Nobody will do anythjng about it. Our generation are to busy making TikToks and OnlyFans.

Apparently its just easier 😂

Correction not Britain's water, Scottish Water is publicly owned!!!

Isn't it weird how no one holds them accountable either. You either hold them accountable yourselves or let it continue.