Exposing the Loopholes: How River Action and Surfers Against Sewage Are Failing the Fight Against Water Pollution
By Philip Greenwood, Founder, Waterways Protection, representing the working-class and neurodivergent voice in the anti-water pollution movement since 2020.
Explaining the Reasoning Behind My Tweet: A Critical Look at River Action and Surfers Against Sewage
As the founder of Waterways Protection, I made my recent tweet in response to being excluded from critical discussions around the UK’s sewage crisis, particularly by organisations like River Action and Surfers Against Sewage (SAS). These groups claim to represent the environmental movement, yet their actions and approaches seem more aligned with privileged establishment figures and appeasers of water companies than with those truly fighting for meaningful change.
This disconnect is especially clear when examining their charters and manifestos, which leave far too much room for continued pollution under the guise of progress. Below, I provide a detailed critique of River Action's “Restore Our Rivers to Health by 2030” charter and SAS’s End Sewage Pollution manifesto, outlining the loopholes that allow polluters to maintain the status quo and prevent the radical change needed to genuinely clean up our waterways.
Let’s talk about River Action Group... the ones who have self-crowned themselves as leaders at the vanguard of change, but are they?
River Action Group River Charter
You can view their published charter here: https://riveractionuk.com/charter-for-rivers/
1. The 2030 Target: A License for Delayed Action
Setting a 2030 target for restoring rivers sounds ambitious, but in reality, it’s just an excuse for delaying necessary action. The sewage and pollution crisis is happening now, and waiting nearly a decade for solutions simply provides polluters with cover to keep dumping waste into rivers unchecked. Real change requires immediate deadlines and concrete milestones, not a vague promise of better outcomes a decade from now.
2. Overreliance on "Nature-Based Solutions": Greenwashing
The charter promotes nature-based solutions, a concept that’s often used by water companies to greenwash their practices. While these solutions—such as planting trees and using natural filtration—can help, they are completely inadequate for dealing with the chemical pollutants, microplastics, and pharmaceuticals that water companies release into our rivers. Where is the focus on hard infrastructural solutions, such as installing three days of storm overflow storage that would prevent pollutants from entering the waterways in the first place?
Moreover, why doesn’t the charter advocate for increased filtration standards for final effluent and drinking water? The Environmental Agency’s list only addresses 91 pollutants, leaving out microplastics, pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, and heavy metals. River Action fails to call for mandatory filtration of all these pollutants, leaving a major gap in their approach. Without these stronger standards, the water companies will continue to get away with treating only a fraction of the contaminants in our water.
3. Vague Language and Lack of Accountability
The charter’s language around sewage infrastructure is vague and lacks teeth. While it calls for “investment” in sewage systems, it doesn’t specify what that investment should look like. It fails to demand the implementation of concrete measures—like the storm storage tanks that can handle three days of overflow—which are essential to preventing routine sewage discharge into rivers. Without these specific demands, the charter provides water companies with enough wiggle room to continue business as usual, offering no real accountability for their failures.
4. Ignoring Final Effluent Standards
One of the most glaring omissions in River Action’s charter is its failure to push for higher final effluent standards. Current regulations allow treated water to still contain significant levels of harmful pollutants, meaning that even when sewage is "treated," it’s far from safe. Raising the final effluent standard to ensure that water returned to the environment is free of microplastics, chemicals, and toxins should be a central part of any campaign aiming to clean up our rivers. Yet, River Action is silent on this front, allowing companies to continue discharging legally treated but still toxic water into rivers.
5. Misleading Campaigns Like "Bathing Water Status"
Although River Action doesn’t specifically mention “Bathing Water Status” in their charter, it’s important to highlight the flaws in these types of campaigns, which are often PR tactics used by water companies to distract the public from real solutions. Designating certain sections of rivers as “bathing waters” gives the illusion of cleanliness while ignoring upstream pollution. These campaigns focus on narrow, isolated areas, rather than addressing the systemic pollution that impacts entire river systems. The real focus should be on cleaning up all water bodies, not just selected stretches that can be showcased for public relations purposes.
6. Failing to Demand Mandatory Upgrades
The charter briefly mentions the need for sewage infrastructure investment, but it doesn’t go far enough. What’s missing is a clear, enforceable mandate for water companies to invest in and upgrade their infrastructure across the board. Simply asking for investment without demanding specific upgrades—like storm overflow tanks, advanced filtration systems, and network repairs—means the companies can continue with minimal improvements, prolonging the sewage crisis indefinitely.
7. No Focus on Water Company Ownership and Profits
River Action’s charter also fails to address the corporate structure of the water companies. Many of these companies are owned by private equity firms and investment funds whose priority is profit, not environmental stewardship. The charter ignores this reality, failing to call for greater oversight or to demand that profits be reinvested in infrastructure instead of siphoned off to shareholders. Without addressing this fundamental conflict of interest, the current system will remain unchanged, with water companies prioritizing dividends over clean water.
Conclusion: A Missed Opportunity for Real Change
In its current form, River Action’s charter is not the bold step forward it claims to be. By relying on vague language, delayed timelines, and nature-based solutions that do little to address the systemic problems in our water infrastructure, it allows for the continuation of pollution under the guise of progress.
What we need are clear, enforceable standards for sewage treatment, including higher final effluent standards, mandatory filtration of pollutants, and concrete infrastructure upgrades like three days of storm overflow storage. Anything less is just playing into the hands of the water companies and their PR machines.
Without addressing the core issues—corporate ownership, insufficient infrastructure, and weak regulation—this charter is simply a missed opportunity for real change. It's time for action, not more vague promises.
Surfers Against Sewage: The Limitations of the End Sewage Pollution Manifesto
Now, lets move on to our friends at SaS, you can view their manifesto here: https://www.sas.org.uk/water-quality/our-water-quality-campaigns/the-end-sewage-pollution-manifesto/
Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) has a powerful name and position in the environmental movement, but their End Sewage Pollution Manifesto falls short of the strong, actionable policies needed to truly clean up the UK's rivers and coastal waters. Their manifesto, while commendable in its ambition, contains several flaws that ultimately provide cover for polluters and prolong the very crisis it seeks to address.
1. Enforcing Existing Laws Without Raising Standards
SAS places heavy emphasis on enforcing existing laws, such as the 1991 Water Industry Act and the 1994 Urban Waste Water Treatment Regulations. While enforcement is critical, these laws are fundamentally outdated and inadequate. The current regulations do not address the modern threats posed by microplastics, pharmaceuticals, and endocrine disruptors, all of which are increasingly present in the water supply and not covered by these old frameworks.
The manifesto’s demand to simply enforce the current laws ignores the need for higher legal standards. SAS should be calling for updated legislation that reflects modern environmental science and tackles these emerging pollutants. Without raising the final effluent standards, polluters can continue to discharge treated water that is still contaminated with harmful pollutants. Enforcement alone is not enough—the laws themselves need updating to address the full spectrum of pollution.
2. Failure to Address the Core Pollutants
Nowhere in the manifesto do we see a mention of microplastics, pharmaceuticals, or chemicals—the very pollutants that are having the most harmful impact on UK waters. SAS’s focus remains on sewage overflows, but that only tackles part of the problem. Modern pollutants, including antibiotic-resistant bacteria and endocrine disruptors, should be central to any serious campaign to end sewage pollution. By ignoring these pollutants, the manifesto allows for a significant gap in how water quality is addressed.
Additionally, while SAS calls for real-time water quality monitoring, they miss an opportunity to advocate for monitoring these more dangerous and persistent pollutants. Testing for only bacteria or visible waste isn't enough—modern pollutants require modern testing and filtration standards. SAS’s failure to push for this shows a lack of depth in their approach.
3. Weak Stance on Infrastructure Investment
The manifesto calls for an end to untreated discharges into bathing waters and popular areas by 2030, but it fails to advocate for the hard infrastructure changes necessary to prevent these discharges. The most glaring omission is the lack of a demand for storm overflow storage that can handle at least three days' worth of sewage and rainwater, a critical step in preventing overflows during heavy rain.
Without addressing the need for significant upgrades in sewage treatment infrastructure, including advanced filtration systems and overflow storage, SAS is effectively calling for cosmetic changes. Their focus on bathing waters is another sign of this shallow approach—ensuring clean water for a few recreational areas does not solve the broader issue of systemic pollution across the entire river and coastal systems.
4. Bathing Water Status: A Misleading Focus
The manifesto’s emphasis on improving bathing water status by 2030 is a PR-friendly but misleading approach. Bathing water status refers to specific sections of water tested for basic levels of pollutants, but it does not address the larger river systems that remain polluted. Focusing on designated clean spots for swimming or paddling can create the illusion of clean waters while ignoring the upstream sources of pollution that continue to harm the broader ecosystem.
This “blue-star” mentality creates a false sense of security and shifts focus away from the root causes of the pollution. By aiming for 200 inland bathing waters by 2030, SAS is setting a target that will only benefit a small percentage of the population, while the majority of the UK’s waters remain vulnerable to untreated discharges.
5. Misplaced Faith in Nature-Based Solutions
SAS calls for a nature-led approach to ending sewage pollution, relying on Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) and constructed wetlands. While these solutions can be useful in certain scenarios, they are largely ineffective for tackling the industrial-scale pollution coming from water companies. Nature-based solutions are often used as greenwashing by companies to appear environmentally friendly while continuing harmful practices elsewhere.
SAS should focus on demanding hard infrastructure changes, like upgrading filtration systems and wastewater treatment plants. Nature-based solutions are a band-aid, not a cure. By promoting these solutions as the most cost-effective option, SAS is giving polluters an easy way out.
6. A Lack of Focus on Polluter Accountability
While the manifesto calls for higher penalties for polluters, it fails to push for fundamental changes in how water companies operate. There is a vague mention of linking dividends and CEO bonuses to environmental performance, but this doesn’t address the structural issue of private companies prioritizing profits over clean water. SAS should be demanding tighter regulations on how water companies reinvest profits into upgrading infrastructure, as well as public ownership models that prioritize the environment over shareholder returns.
Simply capping CEO bonuses won’t fix the problem—the entire financial model of these companies needs an overhaul to put the environment first, not their profit margins.
The Broader Problem: Providing Cover for Polluters
When organisations like Surfers Against Sewage and River Action—populated by individuals from privileged backgrounds—position themselves as the voice of the environmental movement, they end up creating campaigns that serve polluters more than the public. By focusing on incomplete solutions, such as Bathing Water Status and nature-based fixes, they allow circumvention by water companies and members of the political class.
These groups lobby for changes in Parliament but often fail to demand the radical infrastructure upgrades and modern filtration standards needed to truly eliminate pollution. In doing so, they provide cover for government inaction and commercial practices that allow sewage pollution to persist. Worse still, they claim to represent the public and environmentalists who want all pollution to stop, yet their charters and goals clearly allow for half-measures that ultimately serve corporate interests and, just perhaps, themselves.
This is exactly why these organisations get to represent the movement in Parliament. They provide the approved counter-narrative that the establishment finds more palatable, while those like myself—driven by pure logic, meta-truth, science, and objective facts—are excluded. This is why River Action Group and the River Summit blocked me from appearing on a panel, as I’m willing to call out their greenwashing and weak narratives.
At the River Summit, when the River Action Group CEO claimed we have a “water scarcity crisis” instead of calling it what it is—a “water company mismanagement crisis leading to water scarcity”—it became clear where their loyalties lie. His insistence that the panel adopt this language, while interrupting discussions multiple times, showed his eagerness to parrot establishment narratives rather than address the real issues of pollution and mismanagement. I pointed this out in a question, but Matthew Wright attempted to close me down when I had the microphone, preventing a real debate.
By pushing narratives like "water scarcity crisis" (when water isn't truly in short supply, but good management is) and downplaying sewage pollution by saying, "it’s not all about sewage," these organisations reveal the greenwashing services they provide. They give both water companies and the government a shield from accountability by promoting narratives that shift attention away from mismanagement and pollution and towards softer, less confrontational language.
Now, we have these organisations in Parliament, claiming to represent the movement and pushing weak charters and manifestos that don’t give the political class the necessary information or intellectual tools to address these issues on a policy level.
If these so-called leading organisations truly want to represent the fight against pollution, they must adopt a more aggressive stance—demanding:
Zero pollution across all waters;
Raising final effluent standards to ensure no harmful pollutants are released into waterways;
Mandating three days of storm overflow storage capacity at every sewage treatment plant to prevent discharges during heavy rainfall;
Constructing at least seven mega-reservoirs across the country to protect against drought, reduce river water abstraction, and meet the requirements of UN Sustainable Development Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation);
A Water Network Maintenance Revolution, using AI and in-pipe robotics to map, monitor, and repair aging water infrastructure.
Until these basic, reality-based demands are insisted upon, how can we expect any meaningful change? By allowing symbolic campaigns and soft solutions, these organisations are perpetuating the status quo, which serves only to benefit water companies, the government, corporate stakeholders, and just perhaps, themselves.
I will not allow the water pollution movement to be compromised by false narratives. I simply won’t tolerate it. So yes, they will continue to exclude me, stonewall me, and peddle their half-truths. However, should they ever rise to the occasion, updating their charters and manifestos to offer robust, actionable guidelines for both industry and government, then, and only then, would I be willing to endorse them.
But as it stands, they fall short—woefully short. I welcome any feedback or challenges on the above from either River Action or SaS, but for the record, they won’t engage. Should any institution or individual wish to critique my critique and analysis, then the engagement is welcome.
My article has been independently fact-checked and confirmed as accurate. It is based directly on the language of the charters and manifestos that challenge the necessary technical solutions. This is not an opinion piece. I encourage everyone to take the time to explore this topic independently and without bias. With a little time and effort, anyone can grasp the key points and understand the issue fully.
