News
Up to their necks in it: River Action unveils provocative ‘Pooster’ to expose water companies profiting while poisoning our water
Revealed: A new billboard made of £50 notes, stained brown with sewage waste, symbolises the dirty profits of water companies, while separately exposing that Thames Water has dumped sewage into the Thames for 7,002 hours since January 2024.
Today, River Action, organising the November 3rd March for Clean Water, is launching a bold new advertising billboard in central London that highlights the shocking reality of water companies making billions while polluting the UK’s rivers, lakes, and seas.
Dubbed the ‘Pooster,’ the 48 sheet (3m high x 6m wide) billboard, is constructed from fake £50 notes, stained brown with sterilised manure and mixed with water from polluted beaches, rivers and streams across the UK, symbolising the dirtied profits that water companies continue to make at the expense of our environment. The ‘Pooster’ displays a bold caption: “This money is stained with crap, just like water company profits’.
This striking visual dirty protest comes as part of River Action’s wider campaign against water pollution and will be officially launched with a crowd of wild swimmers fed up with dirty money making water dirty at 10am on Monday 21 October ahead of the March for Clean Water, set to take place in central London on November 3rd. The billboard displayed at the junction of Harleyford Road and South Lambeth Road close to Vauxhall Station is a high-traffic area of central London to draw maximum attention to the issue.
The ‘Pooster’ exposes the uncomfortable truth: despite dividend payouts to shareholders totalling £72.9 billion over the last 33 years and excessive levels of executive pay and bonuses, water companies across the UK are failing to protect our waterways.
River Action reveals extent of Thames Water discharges
Today River Action can reveal that since January 1 2024, Thames Water, the ‘pooster’ child of the nation’s broken water and sewage system, alone has discharged at least 7,002 hours of untreated human sewage into the River Thames, equal to 291 days. A large number of these discharges are believed to have been unlawful. The shocking findings from River Action’s research come at a time when Thames Water is facing financial collapse having paid out billions to shareholders and unknown amounts of interest on its escalating debts since privatisation – at the expense of future-proofing its crumbling infrastructure.
Meanwhile, as river users and wildlife suffer the consequences of poisoned water, Thames Water has continued to award failure with CEO compensation packages reaching up to £1.71 million last year alone.
“Up to their necks in it” – River Action’s campaigns manager Amy Fairman
Head of Campaigns at River Action Amy Fairman said, “Water companies like Thames Water are up to their necks in it, treating our rivers, seas and lakes like open sewers. Meanwhile they squander bill payers cash with impunity, splashing it on shareholder dividends, bonuses for their bosses and paying huge levels of interest on their junk-rated debt.
“Our ‘Pooster’ drives home the point: the financial gains they make are filthy money. It’s time for change. The UK public is fed up with sewage-drenched waterways and our campaign demands urgent reform.”
Laura Reineke from the Henley Mermaids is attending the Pooster launch with her fellow wild swimmers, in bathing costumes and hats. She said, “Our beautiful river Thames is being used as an open sewer, the epically mismanaged monopoly that is Thames Water is in charge of our precious blue space. This has to change! We are fed up with swimming in poo. Freshwater species are declining at a rate of five times that of species that live on land, our biodiversity needs rescuing. Our river is visibly poorly, choking in chemical’s and suffocating in poo. This assault on our wildlife and our health has to stop, water should be run for the benefit of humans and the wildlife that calls it home.”
March for Clean Water, Sunday 3rd November
With public outrage at an all-time high, River Action’s billboard exposes the urgent need for reform in the water industry.
The campaign builds momentum ahead of the March for Clean Water, where thousands of people, alongside more than 100 organisations as diverse as the Women’s Institute, Extinction Rebellion and the National Trust, will demand action from the government against water polluters. Marchers are encouraged to wear blue, symbolising their fight for clean water.
River Action and a coalition of 100s of campaign groups want to see the robust enforcement of existing environmental laws with hefty fines for illegal pollution, the end of pollution for profit with no more excessive shareholder dividends and executive pay and the resourcing and reforming the environmental regulators so they can do their job, putting public benefit before facilitating private greed.
Download a hi-res ‘Pooster’ image here.
ENDS
Notes to editor
Global, Media & Entertainment Group provided the billboard space and creative agency Uncharted developed the creative concept.
For safety reasons, unlike the carelessness of the water companies, the ‘Pooster’ was made using sterilised waste diluted with water collected from rivers, beaches, and streams across the UK.
The source for the figure of 7,002 hours of discharges by Thames Water (taken from Faringdon in Oxfordshire to Dartford in Kent) so far in 2024 was calculated on 15/10/2024 using this: https://www.sewagemap.co.uk/
The source for the £72.9 billion in dividends is here: https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/47165/
The source for the figure on CEO compensation at Thames Water is here: https://www.thameswater.co.uk/media-library/home/about-us/investors/our-results/2024-reports/thames-water-annual-report-2023-24.pdf
River Action is an environmental charity on a mission to rescue Britain’s rivers from the deluge of pollution that has left the majority of our waterways in a severely degraded ecological condition. Our campaigns to date have focussed on tackling the severe environmental crises created by both sewage and agricultural pollution.
The March for Clean Water will be a legal, peaceful, family-friendly and inclusive demonstration. On Sunday 3rd November, we will muster at Albert Embankment from 1100, and start marching at 1145. The rally will start in Parliament Square at 1330 and is due to finish by 1500.
To date, more than 100 organisations have pledged their support for the march including the National Trust, Women’s Institute, RSPB, Wildlife Trusts, Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, Angling Trust, Wildfish, British Rowing, Good Law Project, Clean Ilkley River Group, Activist Anglers, Save the Wye Coalition and Henley Mermaids.
