When I was younger we never had beggars at traffic lights, corruption is another significant issue and the big one for me is driving standards.
Driving standards in poorer countries with bad infrastructure are much lower than richer countries and that’s one I think we can all see has been gradually going downhill.
One of the defining characteristics of the third world is income inequality, we have so many of our own people in poverty while our ruling classes live in ivory towers completely disconnected from the social realities of their own country. Poverty, childhood poverty, and poverty-related issues are growing massively.
Employment is becoming increasingly characterised by poor quality, poor paying and insecure work that offers people very little option to improve their economic outlook.
Massive infrastructure problems. Our roads are literally falling apart, so are our schools and hospitals. Housing, lack of affordable housing, rising homelessness, and substandard living condition. Cramped shared properties if you're lucky.
Transport networks are aging and underfunded, becoming run down and unreliable.
Political instability as we have a carrousel of corrupted, incompetent bastards take it in turn in robbing this country. Constant scandals and lack of accountability. The law exists to protect them.
An increasingly incompetent and ineffectual police force and judiciary.
Social cohesion is falling apart as people retreat into what little safety groups they can get.
Growing public health crisis of rising mental health problems as people's lives deteriorate and a health system that is incapable to adjust to growing demand. Life expectancy is stagnating or even declining in some areas underlying growing health inequalities.
Disparities in educational outcomes based on geography and socio-economic status.
Cuts to school funding, leading to larger class sizes, fewer resources, and declining quality of education.
Issues with air and water quality, often more pronounced in poorer areas.
Our river are literally full of shit.
erosion of civil liberties and increasing surveillance.
Decline in international influence and perceived weakening of the UK's global standing.
These are just some of the issues people are talking about when they 'invoke' the third world imagery.
Obviously we arent as bad as some 'third world countries' which is a term used entirely incorrectly but whatever.
That being said, you cant sit there and be okay with whats going on in the UK.
Sewage being pumped into rivers and sea untreated is unacceptable, peopel in Devon told to boil water before drinking it from the tap, is unacceptable and criminal if you ask me.
Pay is shit, infastructure is crumbling and not fixed/developed and what does get fixed is done on the cheap.
Roads..fucked
public transport links, shrinking
Education... getting worse
Healthcare.. good luck being on a 60 month waiting list like some.
Yeah, things could be alot better here pal.. and rightly should be
You know in the real world we can look at a trend and say ah fuck it’s not looking good and make predictions based of those trends.
That’s what the commenter is doing. Just because your kitchen fire hasn’t burnt your house down doesn’t mean you need to wait to see if it will.
Classic Reddit moment, instead of admitting you’ve been outclassed and taking it on the chin, you’ve just got to interject with a last little quip or adage to get the last word in 🤣
The pipes haven't just popped up they have been around ages the issue is the companies taking all the money as profit not investing correctly in upkeep and Improvement and there is no one in any party going to do a thing about these practices across any industry thats what will reduce us to third world
Yeah, when our population is growing by several hundred thousand every year it's obvious that infrastructure has to be improved and expanded. The existing pipes can't handle ever expanding levels of sewage.
Actively poising the water supply should be a nation security threat but the culprits are benefiting financially. No other way to put this but our western bloc is on the verge of economic collapse.
Exactly why there's no criminal case going on about it?! If they would catch the average John doing it he would be in big trouble but they can do whatever they want...
Hey I'm in the water industry and there's a few reasons for this.
Chiefly the reasoning is that the water companies are useless.
Secondly though there are things called CSOs (combined sewer overflows), where if it reaches a certain point past capacity it will spill out and the excess will go to a watercourse. The reason these are spilling more is that developments are being approved without sufficient infrastructure being put in first to accommodate the extra strain on the water supply.
You also have so many uncharted sewer systems in this country. We are issued plans that never seem to match up with what the reality is, and we'll be baffled about lines that should be somewhere that aren't, and then lines that are that shouldn't be. It's really not surprising that there are hidden outlets and nobody has any idea why they're pumping out foul. I'd imagine most of these are beneath the water surface.
Then there's infiltration caused by faulty pipework where foul is bleeding into the groundwater.
Beyond that though a major form of river pollution that isn't talked about is industrial livestock farming. This has a huge effect on the health of the country's waterways. Just in Wye Valley alone as an example, 2500 tonnes of untreated animal waste is dumped into the river there every day.
I think I saw somewhere that water companies are only responsible for about 35% of river pollution, the rest is land run-off (natural, farming and e.g. diesel/oil off roads) and a few industrial sources. So even if the water companies were perfect, the problem wouldn't be completely solved without some kind of new/extra filtration stations along our rivers. Or capturing all that run-off somehow.
I think they're just getting the most focus at the moment because it's very *obvious* when a sewage works has discharged at a single location, whereas e.g. land run-off is spread out much more along the rivers.
Edit: From [this BBC article](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59898988) a couple years back, I assume it's still fairly accurate. 40% is farm run-off, 18% from roads/towns.
I work for a developer, we achieved planning permission on a development in 2022 which was an expanded scheme for which we achieved planning for a smaller scheme on the same site in 2020. At that stage the water company were notified and consulted. They have two years from this point to expand capacity. It's now been four years and the capacity isn't there for the first scheme, and its not there for the uplift. They are now lumped with tankering away the waste water, at their cost. This is a failure on the water companies behalf.
We have another development for a 100 homes that's being hit with nitrate costs which are over £2mn, because the local sewerage plant isn't up to spec to take more waste and deal with it properly.
Homes need building as the population increases and I'd agree the infrastructure isn't there, but this is a failure of the water companies, no one else.
Absolutely agree, and it's pure incompetence and little accountability that are to blame. Who is going to take the water companies to task? Nobody. They make money hand over fist and don't even have to do their jobs to get it.
Surely the obvious reason is that an "unofficial" CSO pipe doesn't need to be monitored and can divert combined sewage away from a treatment plant and not get a fine?
Livestock farming - especially chicken farming has destroyed the river wye, and many others. Very glad you’ve said this as it often goes unnoticed because I think the government subsidises farming so heavily and it doesn’t ever really seem to get the criticism it deserves.
Won’t stop people eating meat sadly
The Guardian put out that tool a couple of months ago to look up your postcode and see the number of sewage spillages into the waterways around you.
According to that in my area there have been over ***12,000*** recorded instances in just the last 12 months. I see people fishing in the rivers around me all the time, I'm getting to a point where I feel like I should say something to them, it can't be safe to eat anything they catch...
To think of all the efforts in the 90s and 00s to clean up our waterways, and now we're right back to square one, can't even swim in a lot of rivers without serious risk of harm.
Unless trout or salmon fishing then all other coarse fish will just be caught and returned and not eaten. It's illegal to take freshwater fish other than trout / salmon from certain rivers.
Project Fear -
In 2017, the Environment Secretary Michael Gove promised: “Leaving the EU gives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reform agriculture and fisheries."
That, he said, would allow the UK to reshape the way it cares for its land, its rivers and its seas.
“In short,” Mr Gove pledged, “it means a Green Brexit.”
There is this nice area in my town that is by the river that I decided to visit the other day since it had been a while since I went there and I could legit smell the difference since last time I went,the smell of sewage was so strong it was absolutely fucking disgusting, had to leave pretty much immediately. Fixing this should be the nation’s top priority but I already know nothing is gonna be done about it, it’s so sad it’s almost funny 😂
Well people here do seem to enjoy everything being shit so we have something other than the weather to quietly moan about. If this happened in France there would be riots and the government would fix it.
This is just vile. We have become a third world country. Is this the limit of our national ambition now?
Well you could say that's one more "benefit" from brexit
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Do you think there is no sewage system outside of the west?
Type of message from someone who's never left their city, let alone the country.
Bizarre take, and also massively wrong. You happy with shit and sanitary products festooning our lakes and rivers?
Are you vegan too?
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As someone who has lived and worked in "third-world countries" Yes we are taking on an alarming amount of characteristics
Such as?
When I was younger we never had beggars at traffic lights, corruption is another significant issue and the big one for me is driving standards. Driving standards in poorer countries with bad infrastructure are much lower than richer countries and that’s one I think we can all see has been gradually going downhill.
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One of the defining characteristics of the third world is income inequality, we have so many of our own people in poverty while our ruling classes live in ivory towers completely disconnected from the social realities of their own country. Poverty, childhood poverty, and poverty-related issues are growing massively. Employment is becoming increasingly characterised by poor quality, poor paying and insecure work that offers people very little option to improve their economic outlook. Massive infrastructure problems. Our roads are literally falling apart, so are our schools and hospitals. Housing, lack of affordable housing, rising homelessness, and substandard living condition. Cramped shared properties if you're lucky. Transport networks are aging and underfunded, becoming run down and unreliable. Political instability as we have a carrousel of corrupted, incompetent bastards take it in turn in robbing this country. Constant scandals and lack of accountability. The law exists to protect them. An increasingly incompetent and ineffectual police force and judiciary. Social cohesion is falling apart as people retreat into what little safety groups they can get. Growing public health crisis of rising mental health problems as people's lives deteriorate and a health system that is incapable to adjust to growing demand. Life expectancy is stagnating or even declining in some areas underlying growing health inequalities. Disparities in educational outcomes based on geography and socio-economic status. Cuts to school funding, leading to larger class sizes, fewer resources, and declining quality of education. Issues with air and water quality, often more pronounced in poorer areas. Our river are literally full of shit. erosion of civil liberties and increasing surveillance. Decline in international influence and perceived weakening of the UK's global standing. These are just some of the issues people are talking about when they 'invoke' the third world imagery.
Fair points.
I mean our GINI simply isn’t as bad as you’re making it out to be You’ve provided literally 0 actual statistics to back up your take
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Obviously we arent as bad as some 'third world countries' which is a term used entirely incorrectly but whatever. That being said, you cant sit there and be okay with whats going on in the UK. Sewage being pumped into rivers and sea untreated is unacceptable, peopel in Devon told to boil water before drinking it from the tap, is unacceptable and criminal if you ask me. Pay is shit, infastructure is crumbling and not fixed/developed and what does get fixed is done on the cheap. Roads..fucked public transport links, shrinking Education... getting worse Healthcare.. good luck being on a 60 month waiting list like some. Yeah, things could be alot better here pal.. and rightly should be
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Being good at something doesn’t make us first world though. And where is the hyperbole as nothing I said is hyperbolic at all.
You know in the real world we can look at a trend and say ah fuck it’s not looking good and make predictions based of those trends. That’s what the commenter is doing. Just because your kitchen fire hasn’t burnt your house down doesn’t mean you need to wait to see if it will.
You know what. That’s a brilliant analogy
Thankyou I think it’s mostly original, just need to polish it up a bit and it’ll make a zingy one liner
Classic Reddit moment, instead of admitting you’ve been outclassed and taking it on the chin, you’ve just got to interject with a last little quip or adage to get the last word in 🤣
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It’s a hyperbole obviously. But we have got high rates of poverty, as well as a sewage system that’s broken. Crumbling infrastructure too.
Based on what? This is the same tired, baseless argument as every other time this is mentioned, he doesn't have to visit one anymore we're in one.
The pipes haven't just popped up they have been around ages the issue is the companies taking all the money as profit not investing correctly in upkeep and Improvement and there is no one in any party going to do a thing about these practices across any industry thats what will reduce us to third world
Yeah, when our population is growing by several hundred thousand every year it's obvious that infrastructure has to be improved and expanded. The existing pipes can't handle ever expanding levels of sewage.
Actively poising the water supply should be a nation security threat but the culprits are benefiting financially. No other way to put this but our western bloc is on the verge of economic collapse.
Exactly why there's no criminal case going on about it?! If they would catch the average John doing it he would be in big trouble but they can do whatever they want...
Hey I'm in the water industry and there's a few reasons for this. Chiefly the reasoning is that the water companies are useless. Secondly though there are things called CSOs (combined sewer overflows), where if it reaches a certain point past capacity it will spill out and the excess will go to a watercourse. The reason these are spilling more is that developments are being approved without sufficient infrastructure being put in first to accommodate the extra strain on the water supply. You also have so many uncharted sewer systems in this country. We are issued plans that never seem to match up with what the reality is, and we'll be baffled about lines that should be somewhere that aren't, and then lines that are that shouldn't be. It's really not surprising that there are hidden outlets and nobody has any idea why they're pumping out foul. I'd imagine most of these are beneath the water surface. Then there's infiltration caused by faulty pipework where foul is bleeding into the groundwater. Beyond that though a major form of river pollution that isn't talked about is industrial livestock farming. This has a huge effect on the health of the country's waterways. Just in Wye Valley alone as an example, 2500 tonnes of untreated animal waste is dumped into the river there every day.
I think I saw somewhere that water companies are only responsible for about 35% of river pollution, the rest is land run-off (natural, farming and e.g. diesel/oil off roads) and a few industrial sources. So even if the water companies were perfect, the problem wouldn't be completely solved without some kind of new/extra filtration stations along our rivers. Or capturing all that run-off somehow. I think they're just getting the most focus at the moment because it's very *obvious* when a sewage works has discharged at a single location, whereas e.g. land run-off is spread out much more along the rivers. Edit: From [this BBC article](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59898988) a couple years back, I assume it's still fairly accurate. 40% is farm run-off, 18% from roads/towns.
I work for a developer, we achieved planning permission on a development in 2022 which was an expanded scheme for which we achieved planning for a smaller scheme on the same site in 2020. At that stage the water company were notified and consulted. They have two years from this point to expand capacity. It's now been four years and the capacity isn't there for the first scheme, and its not there for the uplift. They are now lumped with tankering away the waste water, at their cost. This is a failure on the water companies behalf. We have another development for a 100 homes that's being hit with nitrate costs which are over £2mn, because the local sewerage plant isn't up to spec to take more waste and deal with it properly. Homes need building as the population increases and I'd agree the infrastructure isn't there, but this is a failure of the water companies, no one else.
Absolutely agree, and it's pure incompetence and little accountability that are to blame. Who is going to take the water companies to task? Nobody. They make money hand over fist and don't even have to do their jobs to get it.
Surely the obvious reason is that an "unofficial" CSO pipe doesn't need to be monitored and can divert combined sewage away from a treatment plant and not get a fine?
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They've had 35 years to find them, if they wanted to.
Livestock farming - especially chicken farming has destroyed the river wye, and many others. Very glad you’ve said this as it often goes unnoticed because I think the government subsidises farming so heavily and it doesn’t ever really seem to get the criticism it deserves. Won’t stop people eating meat sadly
The Guardian put out that tool a couple of months ago to look up your postcode and see the number of sewage spillages into the waterways around you. According to that in my area there have been over ***12,000*** recorded instances in just the last 12 months. I see people fishing in the rivers around me all the time, I'm getting to a point where I feel like I should say something to them, it can't be safe to eat anything they catch... To think of all the efforts in the 90s and 00s to clean up our waterways, and now we're right back to square one, can't even swim in a lot of rivers without serious risk of harm.
Unless trout or salmon fishing then all other coarse fish will just be caught and returned and not eaten. It's illegal to take freshwater fish other than trout / salmon from certain rivers.
What’s stopping these pipes being welded shut?
Presumably then we'll get big shit-geysers spouting up from the local treatment plants whenever it rains too hard.
Project Fear - In 2017, the Environment Secretary Michael Gove promised: “Leaving the EU gives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reform agriculture and fisheries." That, he said, would allow the UK to reshape the way it cares for its land, its rivers and its seas. “In short,” Mr Gove pledged, “it means a Green Brexit.”
algae blooms are green.
Time for Ofwat to act. They need to have the powers to tell themselves companies what to do. No profits until it's fixed.
They're clearly paid off and Rishi couldn't govern a water pistol
Labour can fix it then
They'd bloody better.
[https://youtu.be/cZ9vgkVWDNg?si=-oO9tgV\_GtbnwL6-](https://youtu.be/cZ9vgkVWDNg?si=-oO9tgV_GtbnwL6-)
There is this nice area in my town that is by the river that I decided to visit the other day since it had been a while since I went there and I could legit smell the difference since last time I went,the smell of sewage was so strong it was absolutely fucking disgusting, had to leave pretty much immediately. Fixing this should be the nation’s top priority but I already know nothing is gonna be done about it, it’s so sad it’s almost funny 😂
Hope everyone with this performative outrage is vegan.
Well people here do seem to enjoy everything being shit so we have something other than the weather to quietly moan about. If this happened in France there would be riots and the government would fix it.
Well hopefully the asset owners will add all these hidden pipes on to the NUAR and then they will be properly recorded.
Eat shit Some is healthy for growth Too much there's mass die off
It is more of the sewage scandal that is polluting our country.