How we can help keep our open water clean
09th August, 2023
Concerns about water quality affects every single outdoor swimmer and many more besides. The Outdoor Swimming Society is full of swimmers who wish to take individual action to support collective efforts on cleaning up our waterways.
Whether you want to focus your time on supporting local groups or national charities, here are some of the activities that you can get involved in:
- Support organisations such as The Rivers Trust, Surfers Against Sewage and The Woman’s Institute who are campaigning for a clean-up of our waterways.
- Find and get involved in, through social media and swim groups, local water sampling groups measuring water quality.
- Support projects and charity initiatives to rejuvenate and rewild water bodies such as The Seagrass Project, Seasearch, Marine Conservation Society, Clean Rivers, River Action UK, and local river and wildlife trusts.
- Write to your MP and local authorities and sign relevant petitions.
The Outdoor Swimming Society does not campaign about water quality matters such as sewage outflows and industrial and agricultural pollution – we are a voluntary organisation with limited resources and capacity, and we do not have an expert volunteer in this field. Thankfully there are other organisations and experts who are doing this brilliantly right now!
Swimming outdoors is so important to our health and wellbeing; it’s part of our psyche, that’s why we are here. We want to provide enough information to enable open water swimmers to make their own choice on whether to swim or not. We are not suggesting you ignore warnings from local authorities, we just want you stay well when swimming – these tips from our website can help: 10 Ways to Stay Well Swimming