Almost all of the UK’s waterways are polluted. In 2022, a House of Commons Committee report on the state of UK rivers concluded that no river in England was free from chemical contamination. Only 14% of UK rivers had a “good” ecological status.
Both agricultural runoff and the release of untreated sewage are leading causes of river pollution in the UK. In 2021, water companies discharged untreated sewage into English waterways for a combined total of more than 2.5 million hours.
