If rivers had legal rights, sewage scandals would be much harder to ignore

If rivers had legal rights, sewage scandals would be much harder to ignore

World Water Day on March 22 is intended to be a celebration. Yet, for many in the UK, it brings up images of rivers and beaches contaminated with raw sewage, with 450,000 discharges recorded in England in 2024. It’s become a major political scandal, and is now the subject of a bleak Channel 4 docudrama. But what if rivers themselves could take legal action against this pollution? A growing movement of campaigners and researchers say rivers shoul…