Highways engineers are being urged to increase the focus on surface water treatment at the design stage following the recent World Environment Day 2022.
This year’s World Environment Day called for collective, transformative action to celebrate, protect and restore the planet. As the highways industry continues to find new ways to protect the planet, ACO Water Management is beckoning engineers and designers to place greater emphasis on managing water cleanliness when designing projects.
It follows news that the government rejected requests from MPs to clean up Britain’s rivers, in the wake of a report by the Environmental Audit Committee explaining the extent of the pollution crisis in the country’s waterways. Earlier this year, it was revealed that England’s Environment Agency does not have enough money to investigate low-impact pollution events.
A number of pollutants can often be found on the UK’s roads, where motor oil and tyre debris can often find its way into the water network. With water contamination continuing to increase, the onus is likely to fall on the construction industry to help mitigate the impact, as Terry Wilkinson, Specialist Design & Application Engineer at ACO, explains:
“During dry weather, more pollutants, such as rubber from tyres and motor oil, can accumulate on road surfaces. However, when we experience rainfall, this pollution is washed into our drains, adding to the recent problems highlighted by the Environmental Audit Committee.
“The problem with water pollution is complex, however, there are ways in which the highways industry can help protect our waterways from worsening. It’s imperative that effective surface water management is considered at the beginning of every highway scheme, to ensure water that enters the drainage system is cleaned before being released back into the country’s waterways.”
For more information on ACO’s range, please visit www.aco.co.uk/managing-surface-water.
