We’re the inheritors of fabulous landscapes and wild places, ancient monuments, and buzzing urban spaces, but how do we conserve our island home and still live in a 21st-century world economy?
As we build more houses, offices and factories, we’re creating new problems; producing more wastewater and potentially toxic runoff, paving over gardens, relying on Victorian drainage systems and all in the face of increasingly extreme weather events as climate change speeds up.
Recycling may have seemed like a fringe occupation thirty years ago – now we appreciate why it’s important. Sustainable drainage could be the new recycling with added benefits.
The RSPB say “SuDS can provide many opportunities for learning, informal recreation…and other community programmes. This has many social and health benefits and gives people a sense of pride, responsibility and ownership of their environment”.
So, it’s healthy, gets us outside, and gives us a direct channel to work with local authorities to improve our environment – sounds positive all round.
You can read the RSPB’s PDF on Local Authority SuDs initiatives here.