In London, 39 million tonnes of raw sewage ends up in the River Thames each year – the effect of excess rainwater in the combined sewer system that covers most of the city. Just 2mm of rain is enough to trigger one of these events in some areas of the capital. Many of you will have heard about the ‘super sewer’ Thames Water’s solution to prevent such overspills happening.
Thanks to the BBC’s policy of ‘balance’ Cath Hassell of ech2o was invited onto BBC breakfast to look round the site of the super sewer, and talk about front of pipe solutions to lessen the problem of excess rainfall in combined sewers leading to combined sewer overflows and pollution in our river and seas. All live on BBC Breakfast 5th June 2018. Thanks to the people at Tideway who kitted her out in their safety gear and kept her fuelled with coffee and croissants, and to Andy Mitchell, CEO of Tideway, who was a brilliant and generous source of knowledge about the Tideway Tunnel and tunnelling in general in the long waits between being live on air.
(Big shout out to Ols Skinner who videoed the sections off the TV when Cath was speaking. Slightly Heath Robinson but its the best we can do within ech2o’s media budget…)