Sewage is back in the news – it's not just poo to worry about

Just under two weeks ago, in the midst of warnings not to swim at Portobello beach due to bacterial contamination, I went, instead, to Wardie, another Edinburgh swim spot.

There had been no alert there, and the latest water quality monitoring suggested all was good. But the evidence of sewage was still easily to be found, floating amongst the jellyfish in the water – a stray sanitary towel.

It wasn’t an unusual sight. Often when the ‘sewage scandal’ appears in headlines, the word ‘shocking’ is used, but really for any regular to coastlines in highly populated areas, the sewage waste is no shock. It’s just a depressing fact of life.

The Portobello alert was also a reminder of how sewage pollution can impact on businesses and tourism. A friend who runs group swim therapy sessions said she had been forced recently to cancel two events. The mobile Soul Water Sauna, which is used by swimmers alternating between dipping in the sea, and sweating inside the box, also was forced to cancel sessions due to the contamination.

But this brief ban is not the only reason for alarm. A local group, Porty Water Collective, that tests water quality where the Figgate burn spills into the sea, and children are frequently to be found paddling, regularly finds readings at the spot that are a cause for concern. 81% of the tests they took between July 2023 and April 2024 would have been classed as ‘poor’ according to SEPA safe water standards.

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Sewage, barely away from the headlines for long, has been back in the news in recent weeks. The water alert at Portobello triggered a letter from Edinburgh East Labour MSP Chris Murray to the Acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy, expressing concern that, on this, the Scottish Government was “missing in action”. Then yesterday news emerged that the number of sewage overspills in Scotland was significantly more than had been previously reported.  

The Liberal Democrat party claimed figures had been “snuck out” before the general election showing there were 25,109 sewage dumps in Scotland in 2023 – up from the 21,660 that had been reported. 

None of this comes as that much of a shock to us swimmers. Our eyes have long been opened to the fact that the system is designed so that, in times of heavy rain, and increased water running into the sewers, sites called combined sewage overflows release this diluted untreated sewage into our waters.  

One of the things that has helped draw attention to the problem of sewage overspill, as well as the question of whether it is happening outside periods of heavy rainfall, is that the waste we flush alongside it, from wet wipes through to sanitary towels, is highly visible. It’s seeing this non-faecal waste that has made swimmers and beachgoers so alarmed. Last year, a Marine Conservation Society survey revealed that eight times the amount of sewage debris had been found on Scottish beaches compared with those in England and Wales.

But, for me, poo is just the tip of the iceberg. There are other more invisible pollutants that, I would argue, ought to be a source of still greater concern.

Last week sixty environmental and human rights organisations backed a letter from the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland calling for Scotland’s First Minister to show leadership by pushing forward on creating a legal right to a healthy environment in the Human Rights Bill. In a post on X it said “Scotland's lochs, rivers and seas should be free from sewage for all to enjoy safely”.

An information sheet published by the centre outlines a few key reasons to be concerned about water pollution in Scotland that are in addition to sewage, these include: “The River Clyde is the worst UK river for pharmaceutical pollution. 80% of Scottish coasts tested have high concentrations of microplastics.” 

The report it refers to on River Clyde pollution is one that tested the over 258 rivers worldwide, and which found Glasgow to be the 26th worst out of 137 waterways, beating sites in York, Leeds and London, all of which were less contaminated.  

This a reminder that there is a bigger picture and it’s not all about our poo, or our beaches. There is an entanglement of pollution problems, of which, excrement gets the most attention since it provokes a universal disgust.

Earlier this year, a nationwide Scottish Government study was launched testing the levels of drugs and microplastics in Scotland’s rivers. The study, by scientists at the James Hutton Institute, is initially focussing on the Rivers Dee and Ugie in Aberdeenshire.

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It will test for 42 of the more common pharmaceuticals (usually drugs that pass through humans into the sewage treatment process or from farm animals onto the land), 16 pesticides and six other common household chemicals known to disrupt hormones. 

Often it’s said, in response to concerns over Scotland’s water quality, that Scotland’s waters have good ecological status. A Rivers Trust report published earlier this year found, in England, that there was not one stretch of river in good or high condition. Scotland, by comparison, according to SEPA data has 57.2% of river stretches in good or better overall condition. 

But that doesn't mean we should tolerate the pollution in that other 43%.

The situation overall has probably been best put by Dr Eulyn Pagaling, an environmental microbiologist at the James Hutton Institute, who earlier this year said of Scotland’s freshwaters: “Comparatively, Scotland’s freshwaters are in much better condition than in many other countries, including England and Wales and much of the EU. However, that’s not to say there’s not room for improvement.”  

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The challenge for Scottish Water is significant. Not only does our sewage system have to deal with a changing climate, including the likelihood of more rain, which is the chief trigger for overspills, but also growth in housing in some areas. New developments must now have sustainable drainage systems which should go some way to mitigating the problem.

Last year, a friend told me she thought the problem of pollution in Scotland’s water was being exaggerated for political effect. The next day, I went down to the beach and saw again what I always see, unless I choose not to look down. Wet wipes, sanitary towels and other plastic waste.  

While it may be true that some of the outrage around Scotland’s sewage is partly a spillover from the fierce campaigning in England, or caught up in the politics of private versus public or debates over independence, it is an issue in itself, and not to be treated as a political football in which all that matters is which of two neighbours is the worst.