By Bethan Moncur…
I had an incredible time as a UKRI Policy Intern at Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) where I joined the Water Quality and Agriculture Team within the Floods and Water directorate for three months.
The policy area that I focused on was sewage sludge – the solid residual from wastewater treatment – most of which gets applied to agricultural land. Whilst sludge is rich in nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous, it may also contain contaminants such as heavy metals and pathogens, with increasing concerns about emerging contaminants like PFAS (forever chemicals) and microplastics.
My project looked at how to map a way forward for safe and sustainable sludge use in the future, so I used systems thinking approaches to visualise and map out potential policy developments over time. During the internship, I delivered an implementation report on the sludge regulations for publication on gov.uk. I also updated internal notes on emerging contaminants and future sludge value streams, in addition to engaging water industry stakeholders through workshops.
Key learnings from the internship include the importance of collaboration with specialist bodies (such as the Environment Agency) and how behavioural insights can be used for effective policy design and implementation.
