A group of Gloucestershire students will be kayaking the length of the River Thames to increase awareness of water pollution, and raise money for Surfers Against Sewage.
The nine-day mission began with the group setting off from Coates in Cirencester, and will finish 200 miles later in Essex at Canvey Island. In total, four students and one tutor, from Cirencester College, are on the trip. They plan to collect water samples along the route to record river pollution, and where the water is too shallow to safely kayak in, they will carry the boats on land.
As of 2022, the Environmental Audit Committee found that there were no rivers in England in ‘good’ health, a finding the group deemed ‘tragic.’
MP Philip Dunne, the chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee, said: ‘Rivers are the arteries of nature and must be protected. Our inquiry has uncovered multiple failures in the monitoring, governance and enforcement on water quality.’
‘For too long, the government, regulators and the water industry have allowed a Victorian sewerage system to buckle under increasing pressure.’
Pushing for change
One of the students, Joshua Govier, said: ‘Doing a lot of water sports, for example kayaking, you can see the different colours on the water and a lot of waters smell; it’s not pleasant to be on.’
Their aim is to collect four water samples a day in order to discover which sections of the Thames are the most polluted. Govier told the BBC that he volunteered for the challenge because he was concerned about the pollution levels in the river that could make people ill.
Surfers Against Sewage is a campaign dedicated to the protection of oceans, waves, beaches, and wildlife. Their website states: ‘We fight long and hard to protect what we love and we won’t stop until it’s completely clean, safe and protected for everyone, forever.’
A campaign for all
Despite their name, the campaign is not just made up of surfers. In fact, their members are ‘swimmers, dog walkers, paddleboarders, beach cleaners, kite surfers, sandcastle builders, ice cream eaters and sun bathers too.’
Their priority moving forward is fighting plastic pollution. Surfers Against Sewage aims to stop the problem at its source by ‘tackling society’s throwaway culture,’ as well as aiming to clean up the pollution from our beaches. They organise more beach cleans than any other UK charity, according to their website, events which ‘galvanise communities into action.’