Raw sewage discharged into English rivers 375,000 times by water firms

Data from 2021 released at same time as government plan to stop 40% of untreated sewage releases by 2040

Water companies discharged raw sewage into English rivers 372,533 times last year, a slight reduction on the previous year.

The water companies covering England released untreated sewage for a combined total of more than 2.7m hours; compared with 3.1m hours in 2020, according to data released by the Environment Agency (EA) on Thursday.