The campaign group Fighting Dirty has lost its case against the Environment Agency at the High Court today (August 21), on the crucial issue of spreading toxic sewage sludge on farmland. The judge ruled that the Environment Agency was not obliged to change its policy when the former Conservative Secretary of State for Environment failed to act.

Fighting Dirty told a hearing in July that human health was being exposed to “unacceptable risks” due to the Environment Agency (EA) unlawfully removing a target date to implement its “sludge strategy”, which would change regulations on how the material was used on agricultural land.

The group claimed that sludge “is a by-product of treating wastewater in water or sewage treatment plans”, which can contain microplastics filtered out of sewage water to prevent polluting substances from reaching waterways.

The EA, as well as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which was an interested party, opposed the claim, telling the court that removing the date by which the strategy would be applied did not amount to a “legal error”.

In a ruling last week, Mr Justice Fordham dismissed Fighting Dirty’s claim, stating that the original 2023 target date was “unachievable” and that the Government had not acted “unreasonably” by removing it without giving a new timescale.

Fighting Dirty was also ordered to pay £10,000 of the EA’s legal costs.