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To whom it may concern
I have received a message from 'Save your Riverside' a couple of days ago urging those interested in the discussion about the river Thames super-sewer to attend tomorrow to the Open Floor Hearing at the Glaziers Hall.
Unfortunately, I am working and cannot escape my duties, and therefore will not be able to attend. However, and although I am now aware that the deadline for submitting representations to the planning inspectorate has elapsed, I still wish to send you my humble opinion to this whole issue.
I have been personally campaigning against the idea of the super sewer. To that end, I started a blog (http://notosupersewer.
Below, I will try to summarize the reasons why I oppose such project, as well as some ideas about it that I have expressed in the blog:
I have received a message from 'Save your Riverside' a couple of days ago urging those interested in the discussion about the river Thames super-sewer to attend tomorrow to the Open Floor Hearing at the Glaziers Hall.
Unfortunately, I am working and cannot escape my duties, and therefore will not be able to attend. However, and although I am now aware that the deadline for submitting representations to the planning inspectorate has elapsed, I still wish to send you my humble opinion to this whole issue.
I have been personally campaigning against the idea of the super sewer. To that end, I started a blog (http://notosupersewer.
Below, I will try to summarize the reasons why I oppose such project, as well as some ideas about it that I have expressed in the blog:
- The ultimate cause of the problem of the discharges of
raw sewage in the river Thames is not an out of date sewage system in London,
but the actual discharge of our own human excrement through our sewers. You
stop this and you not only get rid of the problem, but also you open the
possibility of recycling our waste into valuable material (i.e. agricultural
fertilizer).
- The super sewer is not a sustainable solution to our
current problems. It will not only continue to allow the use of drinking water
to flush our waste, but also will use a considerable amount of energy to treat
the sewage produced. It will only benefit the company that supports the
project, that is Thames Water, but not the majority of Londoners or taxpayers.
- Apparently the super tunnel will not solve the issue of
the sewage discharges 100%, but very heavy or prolonged rainfalls will provoke
them despite the tunnel.
- Suggested solution: to upgrade all the water closets
across the capital (and eventually across the UK), and/ or to replace them with
any of the many current designs that collect the waste in a safe manner for its
composting and further recycling. This could be achieved over a period of time
by means of, i.e. economic incentives to change the loo in a voluntary basis,
something like the scheme for improving the house insulation or to install
solar panels in your roofs. This would be followed by legislation banning the
construction of current WC in any new building and only permitting those that
would allow the recycling of our waste. Finally, I would force little by little the phasing out of all the old fashion WC in the capital, replacing them with
sustainable ones. This could be done, for example, by taxing old systems out of
existence. A change at a similar scale was achieved by the Clean Air Act of
1956, which banned the use of coals in households throughout London and other large
cities in the country, and forced the introduction of other 'cleaner' system
to heat up our homes. I think we could now do the same but with our sanitary
system.
For more information, please have a look at the various
entries and links in the blog.
Yours faithfully
