Dirty Business
Channel 4’s Dirty Business is essential viewing highlighting the sewage scandal in the most brilliant and brutal terms. Thank you Surfers Against Sewage.
It’s the stench that hits first. Jumper-covered hands clamp quickly over gagging mouths and noses, acting as impromptu masks, but still that unmistakeable smell finds it way through. Then we see the root of it- raw sewage spilling down the road leading to our local break. The timing of it feels almost laughable. A few days earlier South West Water had sent out an ill-timed mailer justifying their latest price hikes. There were bold claims alleging to a year of ‘reduced storm overflow spills’ – which anyone who has been within sight or smell of them fully understands is a mix of sewage and surface water, and anyone who has the SAS App* which has been blowing up with sewage alerts all year would find hard to believe.
In fact, new data from Surfers Against Sewage reveals that 124,717 hours of sewage poured into England’s bathing waters in 2025, with 1,236 people reporting sickness after using the water. 74% cases were recorded at bathing waters classified by the Environment Agency as ‘good’ or ‘excellent.’ So far in 2026, English water companies have dumped sewage into bathing waters for 46,141 hours.
That South West Water mailer had felt particularly ill-advised given that we’d all spent the week glued to Dirty Business the must-see Channel 4 docu-drama highlighting the true cost of the sewage scandal that has been allowed to continue unabated by a profit-first water industry and an Environment Agency that seems to have forgotten itself and its purpose.
Chris Hines MBE is a surfer, an activist and one of the most respected voices in British environmentalism. In 1990 he cofounded Surfers Against Sewage. Over the last 3 decades, this environmental charity has been responsible for not just waking people up to the issues surrounding coastal water quality, but shaking up the way we operate as environmental activists, driving the agenda from the beach front to the front bench. Image: Paul Slater Images/ SAS Archive
“35 years ago, a handful of us surfers had had enough of paddling out through raw sewage,” explains SAS co-founder and longtime activist Chris Hines who has been awarded numerous accolades over the years from the LS/FF Icon Award (which, across 15 editions I believe we’ve only handed out on one other occasion) to an MBE for services to the environment on 2008. “We knew polluted water was dangerous and that we had to stand up and fight back. That’s exactly why we started Surfers Against Sewage back in 1990. We drove a massive clean up of the UK coastline and our campaigning helped ensure all sewage received at least secondary treatment (there had previously been no treatment works). But decades on, that has been allowed to slip and water companies have returned to the obscene levels of pollution we are now seeing. To make matters worse, the Environment Agency, who are supposed to be regulating the industry and protecting the public, are continually siding with water companies. It’s utterly pathetic. Dirty Business lays bare what SAS sees every day. People are getting ill. Children are being rushed to hospital. Families like Heather Preen’s are left with grief that never goes away,”
If you’re in the UK and managed to miss the 3-part drama, we’d urge you to watch it for free on Channel 4 now HERE
Yes you will feel outraged but you’ll also be reminded that it’s people who make change happen. “Right now, ministers are pushing a new Water Bill that risks locking us into the same failed system for another generation,” explains Chris Hines. “Sign the Surfers Against Sewage petition to demand the government puts public health first. They MUST restructure water companies to remove the profit motive and ensure they operate for people and the environment.” HERE
Sick of Sewage? // Image: Mat Arney
*SAS tracks the live status of 14,444 sewage overflows across England (17,943 in the UK) which is fully integrated into Safer Seas and Rivers Service (SSRS). In 2025, sewage triggered 12,673 days of alerts on the SSRS across England’s bathing waters. That’s an average of 40 days per site.