WASTE
AS RESOURCE
Every day, Wales makes waste that can power homes and fertilise fields. Some of it still ends up in our rivers.
Right now, in Welsh waters
Source: Welsh Water's live overflow status service. Red: operating now. Amber: operated in the last 24 hours. The first version of this site read only the first 2,000 of its 2,362 records; it now reads all of them.
across … sites. Hours are summed over sites, so many overflows spilling at once count many times. On average about 96 overflows were discharging at any moment.
The energy in the sludge
Bubble size = spill hours in 2024, for the ten worst sites
Reported figures are Welsh Water's own. The ceiling is our estimate, low confidence and probably high. Question 4
Worst sites in 2024, by spill hours
Source: Welsh Water's 2024 event duration monitoring return.
Where it hurts most
In 2024, 287,576 properties in Wales, 19.46% of the total, were not on the gas grid: fifth of the eleven nations and regions of Great Britain, not the highest as we first said. Ceredigion, at 74.61%, is the highest of any mainland local authority. The areas furthest from the gas grid are rural, and rural areas are where the slurry is. Whether the two can be joined up is a question, not a finding. Question 6
Bathing water classifications are 2024's. Ring size = share of properties off the gas grid (DESNZ, 2024). Every local authority
Sorted by share off the gas grid. Claimants are the claimant count (ONS via Nomis), not unemployment. Bathing: the number of sites rated Poor, or Sufficient, in 2024.
Another company does it differently
Northumbrian Water
These are Northumbrian's numbers and the published bills, not ours, and we have not checked the company's claims. Regional costs differ, so the bills do not show an effect of digestion. The first version of this site said Welsh Water was behind on digestion. It is not: the gap is small. The questions are about what happens next to the heat, the cake and the farm waste next door. Every number, with its source
What if Wales pulled together?
Welsh Water has no shareholders. What it spends, and any penalty it pays, comes from its customers: the people who live with the sewage. So the question is what that money buys.
Use the heat
27.5 GWh of heat from sludge went unused. Is there a customer for it? Question 4
Say which overflows, and when
£1.1bn is allowed for 2025-30, aiming for an average of 30 spills per overflow by 2029-30. Which overflows, and by when? Question 1
Work, honestly counted
Our estimate is 10–60 jobs, permanent, for every 100 farm digesters. Real, local, and not thousands. The working
Slurry out, cake back
Welsh Water's raw sludge is 3.1% solids; dairy slurry is 9%. If sludge can be carried to a digester, could slurry? Question 6
What we are asking
The first version of this site made demands, and some rested on claims that were wrong. So these are questions, each with the evidence for it. We will publish every answer, and every correction.