Revealed: the ‘black box’ wastewater trade that rakes in millions for UK utility companies
Firms made more than £340m last year from processing industrial and commercial wastewater at sewage works that are unable to remove many chemical pollutants
Water companies in the UK made more than £340m in revenue last year by pouring billions of litres of industrial and commercial wastewater into sewage treatment works that experts say are not designed to remove most chemicals, leaving pollutants to pass into rivers, seas and farmland.
Water companies are required by law to take industrial wastewater and issue permits called “trade-effluent consents” that allow businesses to send it to sewage works, though water companies can refuse applications.
However, no independent regulator oversees the trade-effluent process and there is no central register, so Watershed Investigations, the Guardian and the campaign group River Action compiled a database of 26,000 consents, providing the first ever national picture of the system.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/09/uk-water-companies-industrial-commercial-wastewater-sewage-treatment
