Toxic Scotland ...awash with 19,000 Olympic swimming pools of waste
SCOTLAND’S beaches were polluted by sewage spills more than 400 times last year.
Human waste was pumped into the water near some of Scotland’s most popular beaches including, St Andrews, Nairn, Fraserburgh and Peterhead Lido.
But the 411 incidents are likely to be a vast underestimate as just one in 20 discharge pipes are actually monitored by Scottish Water.
Humza Yousaf yesterday said he did not want to see ‘a single sewage dump where that is unnecessary’ after being told of the shocking volume of waste flowing into the country’s seas.
The total volume of recorded waste discharged in Scotland was 47.1million cubic metres, the equivalent of 18,845 Olympic swimming pools – up by 35 per cent in 12 months.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton yesterday told the First Minister of the scale of the pollution problem.
At First Minister’s Questions, Mr Cole-Hamilton asked the SNP leader: ‘From Peterhead to St Andrews these award-winning beaches should be protected and pristine, they draw tourists, families and wild swimmers.
‘This is absolutely disgusting’
But like so many other things on the First Minister’s desk right now, this absolutely stinks.’
He called on Mr Yousaf to ensure all sewage discharges are monitored, saying help was needed so that publicly owned Scottish Water could ‘get a handle on this’.
Mr Yousaf pledged to raise the matter with Scottish Water bosses.
The First Minister said: ‘Our beaches are world-class tourist destinations so I don’t want to see a single sewage dump where it is absolutely unnecessary.
‘I will take up the issue personally with Scottish Water and come back to the member in due course.’
Last month, Mr Cole-Hamilton highlighted figures from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency showing a 30 per cent increase in the number of times sewage overflowed into rivers, canals and seas.
In 2022, 14,008 discharges were logged, up from 10,799 the previous year, with tens of thousands of cases not recorded by the national water company.
Normally waste goes to a sewage treatment works but the capacity of the drains can be exceeded during heavy rainfall. This could lead to sewage works being swamped, creating the potential for waste to back up into homes and businesses.
During such situations, the combined sewer overflows on the pipe network will instead discharge the raw waste into rivers or the sea.
Mr Cole-Hamilton said: ‘This is absolutely disgusting. Every SNP representative for an area where this is happening should hang their heads in shame. At the moment in England almost every sewage overflow is monitored but in Scotland it’s only a small fraction.
‘That means the true situation is probably far worse.’
A Scottish Water spokesman said: ‘We remain firmly on track to deliver on our commitment to install 1,000 new monitors and have three intelligent waste water network programmes in place by the end of 2024.
‘We are working with the wider water sector and other interested parties to ensure the wellbeing of Scotland’s water environment remains a national asset and resource which we can all be proud of.
‘Our programme of investment and improvement builds on progress made over many years to further enhance the quality of Scotland’s water environment, which remains high – 87 per cent of the country’s water environment is in good or better condition.’