For us living in the most beautiful and scenic parts of the UK, it’s hard to fathom why our Welsh water company fails so dismally time and time again.
West Wales collectively came first, second and third in the ‘Top of the Poops’ rankings for the longest overflows - Ceredigion Preseli was followed by Caerfyrddin and Dwyfor Meirionnydd each receiving over 88,000 hours of overflow.
Ceredigion saw 94,836 hours of sewage overflow - the equivalent of 10.98 years.
There were 8,252 sewage dumps in Ceredigion in 2024, equating to 22.6 times a day.
The website TopofthePoops.org plots the sewage overflow across the UK using water companies' own data, finding that almost every constituency in England and Wales has sewage overflowing into their rivers from Combined Sewage Overflow outlets.
Wales overall came out on top with the worst levels of sewage overflow, all from Dŵr Cymru/ Welsh Water.
CSO outlets mix toilet sewage with rainwater, which then discharges into rivers.
Overflows occur during periods of heavy rainfall as a mechanism to stopping the rainwater overwhelming sewage works that could otherwise lead to sewage backing up and flooding people's homes, roads and open spaces.
What’s galling is that Dŵr Cymru seems either incapable or unwilling - or both - to stop this filthy soup spoiling our natural environment. Maybe it’s a good thing that councils have bans on dogs on beaches: Who would want their pets getting sick from the scum that washes up our our shores from our failing water company’s treatment plants?
The reality is that Dŵr Cymru essentially has free licence to continue to treat the environment as its dumping ground. It is a tacit admission that it is unable to do the job for which its charges us an ever-increasing amount. And that is shameful.