People gathered on Cresswell Beach for a national protest

Protestors gathered on Cresswell Beach in Northumberland to stand against sewage discharges into the UK's rivers and seas.

Transcript

00:00 Thousands of people gathered across the country to stand with Surfers Against Sewage for a

00:06 national protest to end sewage discharges being released by water companies into the

00:11 UK's rivers and seas. Surfers Against Sewage want to stop discharges into all bathing waters

00:17 and high priority nature sites by 2030 as these overflows continue to have a devastating

00:22 impact on ecological and human health. Members of dipping groups across Northumberland took

00:27 part in a national protest on Crestwell Beach.

00:31 We're the Crestwell Dippers and we're standing here alongside fellow dippers up and down

00:37 the coast. So we've got the Amble Swimblers from further up the coast who have joined

00:43 us today. The Blythe Bluetits have joined us from further down the coast because they

00:48 like us feel very strongly about the fact that our water companies are polluting our

00:54 rivers and seas by dumping sewage into them. It not only causes health problems for people

01:01 who come on the beach, use the seas with things like E.coli or Salmonella infection. It's

01:10 not just unpleasant when you come across things like sanitary towels or toilet roll bobbing

01:18 along while you're in the sea. It also creates big problems for our marine life. Dumping

01:27 sewage in the sea increases nutrients into rivers and seas which means that algae blooms.

01:34 Algae blooming then means that it depletes the oxygen in rivers and seas which then means

01:41 that aquatic life and marine life are in trouble. So we all know about cutting trees and deforestation,

01:52 carbon footprints and the problems. We should now start thinking about what we're doing

01:57 to our seas and protecting our seas. It's got a fantastic coastline and really the North

02:06 Umbrian water should not be discharging raw sewage into the oceans at any time, never

02:13 mind 2024. It's really time that they're stopped and the way that we'll stop it is by constantly

02:22 putting pressure on them. We have a plan in place to make sure that they will no longer

02:28 be able to do so but we'll hit them financially which means that if we get everybody to stop

02:36 their direct debits for at least one month at their financial year end, this could mean

02:42 that that would hit them in the pockets where they only seem to have profit to take care

02:49 of. So absolutely brilliant, I mean it's great turnout. We all have this mental health issue

02:56 and awareness now and this should be prescribed on the NHS. Swimming, everybody's smiling,

03:03 Wonderful day here. Can't beat it.

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