Today, Rebecca had a tour of the new 'mycelium (mushroom) wetland' storm water filtration project at Anglian Water's Benfleet Waste Water Treatment plant in Watlington Road.
Wetlands are a low-cost, natural solution to water recycling. An acre of wetland can clean around 70,000 litres of water a day, before returning it back to our rivers. The wetlands being built at Benfleet are a first-of-a-kind. As well as increasing the site's storm capacity, the mycelium being planted in the wetland are believed to have even better cleaning powers than traditional treating.
After visiting the site, Rebecca commented: "I have pushed Anglian Water to make many improvements to improve the efficiency of the plant and help tackle local odour nuisance since I was first elected. I still feel there is much more needs to be done and I will keep on pushing them, but this investment is very welcome."