Removing the Aire’s pollution problem one bottle at a time. 

The River Aire is for many a core aspect of Leeds life. Originating west of the city in the Yorkshire Dales, the river provides a scenic backdrop for many Leeds students venturing south of the university. However, the scenic qualities are routinely spoiled by the presence of large amounts of plastic waste entering the river. Fortunately, The White Rose Canoe Club among others have been working to reduce levels of waste in the city’s veins and is looking for more volunteers to help their clean up efforts. 

While the Aire is certainly far from the worst river in the UK for both micro and macro pollution, it still suffers the ravages of many other rivers in the UK including sewage discharge and fly-tipping. Leeds is sheltered from the worst of many of these issues by being the first large city the Aire passes through. With the major issues cited by Aire Rivers Trust being “urban pollution” not becoming a major problem until passing through Leeds. With towns like Castleford, Skiptonand and Wakefield all suffering from the estimated 395 sewage discharges into the Aire in 2023 from just Leeds central and Headingley.

This all said the Aire in Leeds faces major issues of recreation for students even if the idea of swimming in the river likely hasn’t been high on many students’ lists of things to do. Any ambition to try is further hampered by the 786 sewage dumps by Yorkshire Water in 2023 in the Leeds central and Headingley section of the river, while the risk of sewage is enough to deter any swimmer, some recreational sports still take place on the river such as kayaking and canoeing. For them the greater problems stem from macro pollutants like plastic waste in the river which clog up water ways reducing manoeuvrability of kayakers and harming the wildlife which makes our river so special to kayak down by trapping and disrupting the environments essential for many aquatic animals.

The efforts to clean this up have mostly been led by third sector organisations. Including friends of the Aire and local water sports associations, among these are the white rose canoe club. I reached out to them to discuss their water litter picks and met Dean Jordan, their events officer and paddle UK Clear access champion. 

He laid out how they go about their clean-up operation. In effect every two months the White Rose Club gather around the Leeds Royal Armouries and begin picking up the detritus all the way down to Hunslet Loch which is 30 minutes south. This short distance takes the team around 2 hours to clear. You would think that this would leave the river clean for months. However, Dean Stated that their work was often undone in as little as 2 days. Without this work to remove plastics from the river often large amounts of waste build up in the bank’s entrapment features, harming wildlife and contaminating water further as a result of these decaying products.

Ultimately the long run efficacy of these kinds of litter pick initiatives are reliant on reductions in production and dumping of the kinds of waste being picked up; mostly medium density plastics. What this means for students is we need to demand a faster move away from non-reusable/refillable product containers, in the interim, however there are worse things you could do than join White Rose Canoe Club, have a paddle and maybe pick up some rubbish.