Preventing water pollution from your home
Make sure you’re correctly connected - so you don’t pollute your local rivers and streams.
You might be surprised to know that thousands of homes across the North West are unknowingly sending their wastewater straight to rivers and streams because their pipes have been wrongly connected to the sewage mains.
If your house was build after 1920, you may have separate drains so please read on…
This can arise through DIY plumbing (even professional plumbers can get it wrong!), resulting in household appliances being accidentally connected to 'surface water drains' instead of 'foul water drains'. In other words, domestic wastewater flows into those drains that carry rainfall from roofs, roads and pavements into rivers, streams and canals before it’s been treated.
However, if properly connected, domestic pipes send wastewater into 'foul sewers', which carry wastewater to our treatment works, where it’s treated and cleaned to exceptionally high standards before being returned safely to the environment.
It’s worth bearing in mind that homeowners can end up facing bills to put right misconnections to the drains – plus prosecution and a fine of up to £2,500 can arise if they refuse.
So please, if you’re doing your own DIY make sure you don't connect waste pipes to drains which only collect rainwater from your roof or paths – and make sure that you do connect your plumbing to foul water drains (or to a 'combined sewer', which carries both wastewater and surface water). Better still get a competent professional plumber to do the job!
For more information, please visit the Connect Right website to find out if your home is connected properly – and check out these leaflets:
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