UK rivers are widely contaminated with pollution. Which areas are most affected? How to improve your home drinking water?

Can a simple RO drinking water filter help your household to make sure your drinking water is clean?

UK rivers are widely contaminated with sewage and waste, according to the latest research. Scotland has the largest number of clean rivers – up to 66% of Scottish rivers are in good condition. However, in Wales, only 40% of rivers are clean, in Northern Ireland it's 33% and in England it's just 14%.

As a result of this, the costs of water treatment in the country are going up, and it costs more to clean our water. 

The rivers in the south and the southwest of England are particularly polluted. Lower income homes are affected the most, according to the Environment Agency, which says "People in deprived and heavily populated urban areas were more likely to live within 600m of a river with poor chemical or biological quality".

What could be done to solve the problem?

In November 2021, the new bill, a 25 year Environment plan, was finally approved after five years of a battle over how much sewage is allowed to be dumped into our rivers. Peers in the House of Lords and Environmental campaigners disputed that the bill was too soft on water companies. The chairman of the UK national environment audit committee Philip Dunne said the Committee's inquiry uncovered "multiple failures in the monitoring, governance and enforcement on water quality," carried out by England's Environment Agency.

The BBC Panorama had revealed that the water companies in England and Wales continue to drop undiluted sewage and waste into the waterways. The MPs are trying to move away from the system where the water companies self report breaches.

The amount of water quality samples that had been taken by the Environment Agency and Natural Resources has dropped by more than half in the last 30 years, as a result of budget cuts, according to the committee.

Professor Hannah Cloke, professor of hydrology at the University of Reading said that the problem has arisen because of chronic, long-term under investment.

The water companies in England and Wales have made a promise to invest £4bn by 2025 to reduce sewage leaks into waterways.

What can be done to improve the quality of your drinking water at home?

A simple RO drinking water purifier can solve all the problems related to not perfect or bad-smelling tap water. The RO filter removes bacteria and viruses from the water, as well as dissolved solids and impurities. Get a quote for a water filter today