King Charles Takes an Uber Boat Along the River Thames to Visit London's 'Super Sewer'
King Charles' busy week of royal events continued on the water!
The monarch, 76, boarded a hybrid Thames Clippers Uber Boat in Westminster on Wednesday, May 7, for a ride along the famous London waterway.
He met with employees as he traveled on the Mars Clipper, one of three boats the Thames Clippers company currently has serving 24 piers along the River Thames. He also chatted with CEO Sean Collins, learning more about the company's investments in hybrid and hydrogen power.
'It's a nice way [to travel],' the King remarked, according to The Daily Mail.
Toby Melville - WPA Pool/Getty King Charles in London on May 7, 2025
King Charles in London on May 7, 2025
Related: King Charles Urges Climate Action on Behalf of His Grandchildren: 'They Will Be Living with the Consequences'
After a 10-minute ride, the royal group disembarked for a visit to the Thames Tideway Tunnel project at Bazalgette Embankment.
Known as the London 'super sewer,' the tunnel was officially opened by the King after 10 years of construction. Measuring 25km long and able to hold more than four million gallons of sewage, the Tideway project was built to help divert waste away from the Thames and keep the iconic river cleaner.
The London sewers were originally constructed during the Victorian era, when the capital city held just around four million people. The system has struggled in recent years due to increased population, rainfall and climate change.
TOBY MELVILLE/POOL/AFP via Getty King Charles in London on May 7, 2025
King Charles in London on May 7, 2025
Tideway CEO Andy Mitchell welcomed the King, showing off the project's high-tech tracking systems — which have measured nearly two billion gallons of waste diverted away from the Thames since August 2024 — and unveiling a plaque bearing his name.
'The King was fascinated with detail and the quality of the space,' Mitchell later said of the monarch's visit. 'The team were absolutely thrilled with his comments on the quality of the work here. In an average year, there are 40 million tons [of sewage] and we will be preventing the vast majority of that from going into the river.'
King Charles also met with some of the 25,000 workers on the project and spoke with poet Dorothea Smartt, whose poetry about the River Thames is inscribed on the Tideway's ventilation columns.
TOBY MELVILLE/POOL/AFP via Getty King Charles in London on May 7, 2025
King Charles in London on May 7, 2025
Related: King Charles Sports a Top Hat at First Buckingham Palace Garden Party of the Season with Queen Camilla
The monarch has been a lifelong proponent of environmental causes and conservation projects, and his royal calendar often reflects that passion.
Can't get enough of PEOPLE's Royals coverage? Sign up for our free Royals newsletter to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more!
On Tuesday night, King Charles attended the premiere of Ocean with David Attenborough, the latest nature documentary hosted by the beloved English biologist, at the Royal Festival Hall in London.
The film, which is set to debut in cinemas before airing on NatGeo and streaming on Disney+ and Hulu, focuses on sharing 'the story of how we can, and must, restore the glory of Earth's vast, interconnected waters,' according to a press release.
Read the original article on People
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
40 minutes ago
Getty Images and Stability AI face off in British copyright trial that will test AI industry
LONDON -- Getty Images is facing off against artificial intelligence company Stability AI in a London courtroom for the first major copyright trial of the generative AI industry. Opening arguments before a judge at the British High Court are scheduled for Monday. The trial could last for three weeks. Stability, based in London, owns a widely used AI image-making tool that sparked enthusiasm for the instant creation of AI artwork and photorealistic images upon its release in August 2022. OpenAI introduced its surprise hit chatbot ChatGPT three months later. Seattle-based Getty has argued that the development of the AI image maker, called Stable Diffusion, involved 'brazen infringement' of Getty's photography collection 'on a staggering scale." Tech companies have long argued that 'fair use' or 'fair dealing' legal doctrines in the United States and United Kingdom allow them to train their AI systems on large troves of writings or images. Getty was among the first to challenge those practices when it filed copyright infringement lawsuits in the United States and the United Kingdom in early 2023. 'What Stability did was inappropriate,' Getty CEO Craig Peters told The Associated Press in 2023. He said creators of intellectual property should be asked for permission before their works are fed into AI systems rather than having to participate in an 'opt-out regime." Stability has argued that the case doesn't belong in the United Kingdom because the training of the AI model technically happened elsewhere, on computers run by U.S. tech giant Amazon. Similar cases in the U.S. have not yet gone to trial. Stable Diffusion's roots trace to Germany, where computer scientists at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich worked with the New York-based tech company Runway to develop the original algorithms. The university researchers credited Stability AI for providing the servers that trained the models, which require large amounts of computing power.
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
Getty Images and Stability AI face off in British copyright trial that will test AI industry
LONDON (AP) — Getty Images is facing off against artificial intelligence company Stability AI in a London courtroom for the first major copyright trial of the generative AI industry. Opening arguments before a judge at the British High Court are scheduled for Monday. The trial could last for three weeks. Stability, based in London, owns a widely used AI image-making tool that sparked enthusiasm for the instant creation of AI artwork and photorealistic images upon its release in August 2022. OpenAI introduced its surprise hit chatbot ChatGPT three months later. Seattle-based Getty has argued that the development of the AI image maker, called Stable Diffusion, involved 'brazen infringement' of Getty's photography collection 'on a staggering scale.' Tech companies have long argued that 'fair use' or 'fair dealing' legal doctrines in the United States and United Kingdom allow them to train their AI systems on large troves of writings or images. Getty was among the first to challenge those practices when it filed copyright infringement lawsuits in the United States and the United Kingdom in early 2023. 'What Stability did was inappropriate,' Getty CEO Craig Peters told The Associated Press in 2023. He said creators of intellectual property should be asked for permission before their works are fed into AI systems rather than having to participate in an 'opt-out regime.' Stability has argued that the case doesn't belong in the United Kingdom because the training of the AI model technically happened elsewhere, on computers run by U.S. tech giant Amazon. Similar cases in the U.S. have not yet gone to trial. Stable Diffusion's roots trace to Germany, where computer scientists at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich worked with the New York-based tech company Runway to develop the original algorithms. The university researchers credited Stability AI for providing the servers that trained the models, which require large amounts of computing power.
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Getty Images and Stability AI face off in British copyright trial that will test AI industry
LONDON (AP) — Getty Images is facing off against artificial intelligence company Stability AI in a London courtroom for the first major copyright trial of the generative AI industry. Opening arguments before a judge at the British High Court are scheduled for Monday. The trial could last for three weeks. Stability, based in London, owns a widely used AI image-making tool that sparked enthusiasm for the instant creation of AI artwork and photorealistic images upon its release in August 2022. OpenAI introduced its surprise hit chatbot ChatGPT three months later. Seattle-based Getty has argued that the development of the AI image maker, called Stable Diffusion, involved 'brazen infringement' of Getty's photography collection 'on a staggering scale." Tech companies have long argued that 'fair use' or 'fair dealing' legal doctrines in the United States and United Kingdom allow them to train their AI systems on large troves of writings or images. Getty was among the first to challenge those practices when it filed copyright infringement lawsuits in the United States and the United Kingdom in early 2023. 'What Stability did was inappropriate,' Getty CEO Craig Peters told The Associated Press in 2023. He said creators of intellectual property should be asked for permission before their works are fed into AI systems rather than having to participate in an 'opt-out regime." Stability has argued that the case doesn't belong in the United Kingdom because the training of the AI model technically happened elsewhere, on computers run by U.S. tech giant Amazon. Similar cases in the U.S. have not yet gone to trial. Stable Diffusion's roots trace to Germany, where computer scientists at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich worked with the New York-based tech company Runway to develop the original algorithms. The university researchers credited Stability AI for providing the servers that trained the models, which require large amounts of computing power.
