06.03.14
Rail sewage dumping figures must be revealed – RMT
Rail union RMT is demanding that the Department for Transport to disclose what tonnage of human excrement is currently being dumped on Britain’s railways by train companies every year.
This comes after a recent BBC report highlighted that the issue, which was brought to the government’s attention last year, has still not been dealt with efficiently.
In November, transport minister Baroness Kramer stated in the House of Lords that the practice is “utterly disgusting”.However, RMT’s general secretary Bob Crow has said not enough is being done to tackle the problem.
“It really is a shocking indictment on the state of our railways 20 years after privatisation, and with hundreds of millions of pounds a year being creamed off in private profits, that raw sewage is still being dumped and sprayed across the tracks up and down the UK,” he said.
“The minister has branded the system as ‘disgusting’ but has not lifted a finger to stop it. That is why RMT has repeatedly called on Baroness Kramer and her government to take urgent action and we are reissuing that call.”
According to track workers across the country, some of the UK’s rail infrastructure resembles an open sewer and that the human waste doesn’t simply hit the track bed, it sprays out when trains are travelling at speed posing a health risk to track-based staff.
Crow added: “There is no point the government politely requesting that the private train companies desist, they are the one’s profiting out of this by allowing it to continue in the full knowledge that it is both dangerous and disgusting.”
(Image copyright psd, used here under a Creative Commons licence)
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