For the last fortnight holidaymakers have been warned not to swim off several of the North West's most popular beaches. No-swim warnings were issued in Blackpool and across the Fylde Coast after untreated sewage was dumped in the sea following a storm.
But it's not just the beaches and coastline that suffer from sewage dumps - as this map highlighting all the hotspots for sewage spillage across Greater Manchester shows. Treated sewage is regularly discharged into waterways, while there are also overflows of untreated waste and storm water into rivers.
Collectively, there were 384,568 spills from the discharge points last year for a combined total of over 2.3 million hours, according to data from the Environment Agency. In Greater Manchester there were 21,391 spills last year for a combined total of 99,227 hours.
