Sewage was dumped into UK waterways at least 585,000 times in 2024, the date of the last public report. That’s an average of more than 1,600 times a day, once every 54 seconds. And these were the recorded spills; campaigners believe there could have been as many as one million sewage discharges. In spite of this, shareholders of UK water companies were paid £1bn in dividends in 2023-24.
These are huge, hard-to-come-by figures that obscure their real-world impact – but a vital new factual drama from the makers of Partygate reveals the devastating health and environmental stories behind the statistics. Based on a decade-long investigation into England’s water companies, Dirty Business tells the stories of real whistleblowers and people who believe their lives have been destroyed after encountering sewage-polluted water.
