It might be the end of term, but this week’s been filled with shite to say the least. It’s always busy in school but at every turn there seemed to be a pile of crap waiting to be sorted.
On Tuesday this was literal as the girl’s toilets were seriously blocked and overflowing. The caretaker, bless his steel-toed boots, managed to get to the source of the problem only to find someone had tried to flush a cling film-wrapped corned beef sandwich down the loo.
Why would someone do that? I know corned beef isn’t everyone’s favourite but putting it down the toilet seems a bit rash. There is CCTV down the corridor but obviously not in the toilet block so it could have been anyone. We have now been instructed to monitor the packed lunch boxes to add names of pupils with corned beef sandwiches on a list of suspects – it’s just another administration duty to add to the workload. Poo!
During the 15th assembly on how to correctly use the sanitation facilities properly, there were several stifled giggles when they heard it was a sandwich. Pupil H muttered loudly that corned beef tasted like shite anyway. The most basic of toilet humour always raises a smirk. The Head Teacher did not look amused, so I buttoned my lip and didn’t even mention the use of single-use plastic, inappropriate disposal of materials or even the climate impact of beef. When pushing for sustainability, it’s a good idea to choose the timing wisely.
Untreated sewage
In the bigger scheme of things, the ‘corned beef/ toilet incident’ is a comparatively minor problem as there are millions of tonnes of untreated sewage entering our precious river networks each year. Privatised water companies are in the news for running up vast debts yet failing to improve our sewage system to protect us from the increasingly common storm overflows.
The companies still seem to be able to pay their CEOs more money a year than I’ll make in a decade whilst also increasing the profits for their shareholders. Apparently raw sewage was discharged for almost 4 million hours into rivers and seas last year in a 105% increase on the previous 12 months. 4 million hours!!! If I live three score years and ten my whole life expectancy is only 600K hours. I’d be sacked if I had such a dereliction of duties in my role. I’d be up shit creek without a paddle.
Storm overflow spills
According to the Government report, storm overflow spills are measured by event duration monitors and 100% of storm overflows across the water network are now fitted with these, meeting the target set by the government to do so by the end of 2023. With just 7% of storm overflows fitted with a monitor in 2010, England is now a world leader in the number of storm overflows monitored. It also seems to be a world leader in the amount of sewage in our rivers, we can just monitor how much. In the education system this would be akin to monitoring pupil progress without needing to teach them anything so that they can move forward; let’s just keep weighing the pig without trying to fatten it.
The water company CEOs must have been happy as pigs in shit for the past decade or two. I’ve read that apparently; they are about to be fined for excess spills. So, what cost can be put on the extermination of aquatic life in a river or the loss of recreation time for locals? We don’t even let Mabel our mutt swim in our local river anymore in case she fetches a turd rather than a stick. Why there are so many wild swimmers in the river I have no idea, even the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race organisers have major concerns about high levels of E-Coli in the water. Putting the water companies back in the hands of the public sector can’t come soon enough – blimey that’s another potentially politically partisan point of view. I’d better watch my pees and Qs.
Composting toilet
Hubster checked our composting toilet yesterday. We tend to only use it when we’re outside during the spring and summer months. Decomposing organisms, such as worms, bacteria, and fungi, find their way in and create a fantastic, nutrient rich fertiliser. The secret is to keep the urine separate otherwise it can become anaerobic and very smelly. In the belief that nothing should go to waste we leave it to break down for a good couple of years then can use it safely on our patch. Ironically, Hubster is of a certain age where he needed to provide a sample of poo on a stick for bowel cancer testing this week and pop the package in the post. Bless the NHS, early screening is really important, but my heart does go out to the person who opens the envelopes.
Note to self: Over the holidays write to my MP again about sewage in our local river. He might as well have to deal with some crap from his constituents as he works for a government that is, at least in part, responsible for it.
