What is pollution?
Pollution is when a substance, or effluent in the case of sewage companies, enters a watercourse. Pollutions arise from asset failures such as burst pipes, from the impacts of severe weather including flooding, or the handling and storage of chemicals used in treatment processes. Despite all our hard work trying to prevent pollution, incidents do still occur. Incidents are categorised based on the extent of environmental impact they have using the Environment Agency’s Common Incident Classification Scheme (CICS). Category 1 and 2 incidents are deemed as ‘serious’ incidents, Category 3 are those with ‘minor’ impact.
Reporting pollution
If you've spotted pollution in a water course, please call us on 0800 138 3484 so we can investigate as a priority.
How to spot pollution
Signs of a suspected pollution in rivers, water courses or coastal areas could include:
Toilet paper, tissues, wipes, faecal matter, condoms or sanitary products
Cloudy or milky river or stream
Soap suds or foam
Slimy grey sewage fungus
Dead or gasping fish
Sewage odour
What we're doing
Where we identify the incident to be our responsibility, our commitment is to:
- take immediate action to stop the pollution
- perform a detailed assessment of the cause of the pollution and any environmental impact
- inform the Environment Agency of the incident
- clean up in the affected areas
- ensure that we do everything we can to prevent the problem from happening again.
Our Pollution Incident Reduction Plan 2026
We’ve been doing extensive research to understand what you’d like us to improve on over the next 5 years. We know that you need us to prevent sewage escapes from damaging your homes and the environment, and that you’re wanting to see improvements to Yorkshire’s rivers across the region.
Building on the foundation of our previous plans, our 2026 Pollution Incident Reduction Plan (PIRP) reflects the progress we have already made and and how we have continued to learn by using a more targeted, insight‑led approach. One of these foundations is a dedicated Pollution Root Cause Analysis (RCA) team, whose work has enhanced our understanding of the underlying drivers of pollution incidents across our system. This has been used to directly shape and strengthen the improvement projects included within this updated plan.
Our ambition remains bold. We continue to work towards a 30% reduction in pollution incidents, while also striving to achieve zero serious pollution incidents. The enhanced RCA‑informed approach allows us to prioritise the interventions with the greatest impact, refine our operational strategies, and ensure that our investment delivers the best possible value.
Our plan is aspirational and will be dynamic as it evolves to meet the scale of the challenge while developing and deploying the most cost-effective solutions.
What you can do
You can help us protect the environment by:
- Only flushing pee, paper and poo down the loo. Wipes, no matter what they say on the packet shouldn’t be flushed
- Stop the Block: Allow fat, oil and grease to cool before putting it in the bin. Don’t pour it down the sink or flush it away in the loo
- Use Watersafe Plumbers. This can help prevent misconnections, which occur when appliances like washing machines or toilets are wrongly plumbed into surface water sewers. This releases untreated water to the rivers through outfalls which cause pollution.
- Report any suspected pollution to 0800 138 3484.
Previous plans
Misconnections
Misconnections occur when plumbing is incorrectly linked to surface water drains instead of the sewer system, causing untreated wastewater to flow directly into rivers. This pollution can cause water quality issues, harm aquatic life, and pose risks to public health and the environment.
