Informational Declaration
This website has been created as an information resource only and is not intended as guidance or for reference.
About this website
This website has been made as part of a dissertation at the University of Exeter. The project, titled ‘Swimming with sewage; the microbiological safety risk of sewage discharge’ aims to increase public knowledge and provide information surrounding the release of sewage and raw waste into UK water systems while providing no bias in the information provided.
The project is being completed by undergraduate student Thomas Clifford (studying BSc Medical Sciences) under the supervision of Dr. Eleanor Townsend, Exeter Medical School.
Many resources are created by organisations with lobbying or political associations, in turn being crafted with the intention of directing the reader towards certain viewpoints. This website is not designed to do that. It is merely to provide information for the reader to craft their own opinions and perspectives on the topic.
Over the last couple of years this issue has become an ever increasing topic within the media who often cherry-pick statistics and comment on trace findings which may not be relevant. The page ‘Aquatic pathogens relevent to sewage’ aims to discuss this further in terms of colony forming units (CFU).
Importance of this study
Across the UK approximately 17 million people use our water systems with 48% reporting they did outdoor swimming. A survey by Defra showed 720 out of 12000 survey reported feeling ill after entering the water in 2020/21. A year later this increased to 1,924 people.
In England alone there were a reported 301,091 sewage discharge events into water ways during the 2022-23 bathing season, with only 14% of English rivers being classified as meeting ‘good’ ecological status.
As we can see there are a large number of people who use our water ways and directly enter the water, as a result there is a need for unbiased, purely informational resource for these people to use and educate themselves.
Feedback
If you have any comments or would like to get in touch then please feel free to email.
Thomas Clifford – tc650@exeter.ac.uk
Alternatively I would encourage you to complete the following questionnaire to share your thoughts about the website anonymously. It shouldn’t take too long and any feedback is exceptionally useful in the writing of my dissertation. All feedback is anonymous.
Please find a link to provide feedback HERE.
Thank you
Swimming with Sewage 