You don’t need to see poo and paper to describe waste water as “sewage”. “Sewage” is any form of waste water, whether human, agricultural or industrial. Water companies find it cheaper to pour sewage into the waterways than to manage it properly.
I published some pictures of detritus gathered in the Port Meadow floods, describing it as “sewage”.
Thames Water asked (by direct message) if I had seen “signs of sewage, such as sewage smells or debris like toilet paper?”. I had not. They then said:
…to which I replied:
The result is the outflows like the one shown in the Chadlington report above and the pollution of all the waterways downstream from the outflows. The tangible evidence is not necessarily poo and paper. The examples in the pictures below, taken yesterday, started piling up almost at once after Chadlington and other plants began reporting discharges.
It’s all good for Thames Water, of course. It saves money, rather like a rogue builder can reduce costs by dumping rubble in a country lane instead of taking it to the council tip. The cash thus saved can be paid as dividends to shareholders, and happy shareholders reward executives with bonuses.
I have lived around Port Meadow, with one short break, since the early 1980s, and knew it before then. I began seeing this pollution only recently, when the government relaxed previous restrictions on overflows. It is deliberate and cynical.
Oxford Inciter 