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Against a capital expenditure across the same period of £123 billion.

Is that not how all private businesses work?

Do "something" to make a reasonable profit for investors?

Consumerism is what is screwing the planet because we need an eternal supply of new consumers to keep buying "stuff" that is done by population expansion. Population expansion consumes more, does more harm, creates more waste.

Fewer people - consume less - waste less.

Time to cull a few out.
You're a great one for throwing out squirrels. Population growth isn't really the point here or what we are discussing. The point is surely more that it's not appropriate for private companies to be in charge of essential utilities, especially those with such an impact on the environment as water.
 
It's an essential utility. Provided by the tax payer at its inception (because the private sector couldn't make a profit out of it) and sold on the cheap to the private sector. Its number one concern should have been maintaining, updating and improving the infrastructure not the opposite so it could pay dividends to shareholders. If the £57 billion paid to shareholders was recalculated to 2021 prices and then factoring in the efficiencies that investment over the past 30 years will have brought and suddenly you don't have the enormous problem you have now.

It truely is a disgrace and a scandal.

Not wishing to get into one here (no time or inclination), But is suspect your Pension Scheme is invested in here somewhere, directly or indirectly, as it will be in many utility companies.
 
You're a great one for throwing out squirrels. Population growth isn't really the point here or what we are discussing. The point is surely more that it's not appropriate for private companies to be in charge of essential utilities, especially those with such an impact on the environment as water.

Are those private companies not regulated for the public good by OFWAT who impose the fines, for the public good, when said private firms break the rules?
 
Are those private companies not regulated for the public good by OFWAT who impose the fines, for the public good, when said private firms break the rules?
Obviously there is regulation and they're not necessarily all monsters. But as said above when the basic aim is profit there will always be shortcuts and costcutting.
 
Obviously there is regulation and they're not necessarily all monsters. But as said above when the basic aim is profit there will always be shortcuts and costcutting.

You could also argue that getting fined £90 million might take a chunk out of said profit..........

And that is on top of Ofwats fines.............
 
Not wishing to get into one here (no time or inclination), But is suspect your Pension Scheme is invested in here somewhere, directly or indirectly, as it will be in many utility companies.
Not sure that is relevant. Pension schemes invest where there is hopefully a profit and most people do not spend hours managing their own pension funds at a granular level. If the utility companies were 'not for profit' then the pension funds would just invest elsewhere, surely?
 
Are those private companies not regulated for the public good by OFWAT who impose the fines, for the public good, when said private firms break the rules?
It is also a failure of the regulator and those who oversee the regulator ie. All governments since 1991.
 
It is also a failure of the regulator and those who oversee the regulator ie. All governments since 1991.

As long as your pension is safe it`ll be fine.

And yes all governments do things wrong somewhere down the line, that's human nature.
 
Surely if the frequency is decreased be it water, pee or turds then it makes the end result easier to manage, reduces volume in the system so negates the need to discharge?

If we pee three times a day then have dump and flush there is more sewage but less total volume - multiply that by 30 million households.....

I`m trying to learn here before I dig a home composting loo down by the shed so I can "do my bit".
If we wanted to really get our lab coats out we could probably start running experiments on the benefits of dilution. Ie two flushes equals twice as much water which improves the fresh to waste ratio and so on. I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet but I think we should keep our options open.

I asked my brother for more information on the chemical situation earlier and have copied and pasted his response:

essentially, because we were in the EU we could adopt the ‘just in time’ ethos to literally anything. This included access to and storage of water treatment chemicals. It used to take 48hrs to get such chemicals from Belgium and Holland to the UK. we now ship from Canada. It takes 8 weeks and comes halfway around the world.

There was also this corker of a line in another message:

While we talk about sh*t, the drinking water has the same supply problems.

Let’s just figure out the best way to start pooing before we worry about the drinking water. I vote that we all try to have half as many poo poos as we used to, not least because where there is poo there will always be wee.
 
Good old JIT scuppering things again........................ 🤷‍♀️

And it must be Brexit.............. newsflash its not just us.



 
£60bn in dividends and next to nothing invested in infrastructure. It’s a pretty one sided see-saw

Sorry did you miss this post?
Against a capital expenditure across the same period of £123 billion.

Is that not how all private businesses work?

Do "something" to make a reasonable profit for investors?

Consumerism is what is screwing the planet because we need an eternal supply of new consumers to keep buying "stuff" that is done by population expansion. Population expansion consumes more, does more harm, creates more waste.

Fewer people - consume less - waste less.

Time to cull a few out.
 
Sorry did you miss this post?
I was trying to highlight the absurdity of the privatisation of essential services.
Of course Business has to make a profit. But in the normal business world there is suppose to be heathy competition which drives up standards for consumers.
These privatised utilities are weird monopolies often propped up by the tax payer.
Try and set a business up that allows you to dump your waist in the local river. You just wouldn’t get away with it, and if you attempted it illegally, as has been done, you’d go to prison.
 
As long as your pension is safe it`ll be fine.

And yes all governments do things wrong somewhere down the line, that's human nature.
Squirrel again. It will make up a fraction of any properly run pension fund's portfolio and any loss a fund may suffer as a consequence of not investing in a water company hardly justifies the blatant under investment by the water companies in their infrastructure over the past three decades. The s**t is hitting the rocks to mix metaphors.
 
No I reckon we should all stomp our feet like toddlers all day and act like we're living in North Korea because we're no longer part of a political union nobody ever voted for in the first place.
Well, i for one am going to keep stomping because of all the things like this. Blatant lying in order to scare people into voting for them is not ok and
if we ever just accept it, what does it say about us ?

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