Human activities have a detrimental effect on the environment and in particular on natural reservoirs. Nature has suffered the most from industry and environmental damage over the past 50 years. Despite the fact that many people consider the Indian Ganges the dirtiest river, it has a much stronger competitor …
The dirtiest river on the planet
The world's most polluted river and the dirtiest source of water on Earth is the Indonesian Tsitarum River. It flows on the large island of Java, where its waters are used by the islanders for agriculture and water supply. Citarum is the main waterway of West Java, the river is so covered with a layer of debris that the air does not reach the surface of its water.
Forty years ago, the river had a normal appearance - people, animals and plants took water from it, but in the 80s the Indonesian industry began to develop rapidly.
After the appearance of factories and factories in Indonesia, the Tsitarum basin turned into a natural dump where industrial waste was dumped and sewage water was discharged. At the same time, the river itself has a rather modest size - only 10 meters wide and 5 meters deep. The settlements that use river water as their main and only source suffer the most from the pollution of Citarum.
Flour of Citarum
People living near the dirtiest river in the world take water from it for cooking, hygienic procedures, irrigation of land and fill the drinking bowls of animals with it. Despite the complete unsanitary conditions, the unfortunate islanders simply have no other way out - it is impossible to find another source of water within the reach there. However, some residents even manage to make money on their grief - they float on the Tsitarum in boats and sort through giant heaps of garbage, looking for raw materials suitable for processing.
Citarum often gives seekers things that are washed, repaired, and sold as second-hand items.
Despite the monstrous pollution of the river, the state hammered the last nail into its coffin, building a hydroelectric power station on the Citarum. As a result, the ecological state of the region was finally shaken - after all, the hydroelectric power station made it difficult to float garbage heaps along the river, which led to their even greater accumulation and decay under the sun's rays.
Today, the hydroelectric power plant practically does not work, because because of it, water cannot flow freely along the Citarum bed, which is a dead end situation. A few years ago, the Asian Development Bank invested $ 500 million to clean up the river from human waste, but there has been no improvement in the deplorable state of Citarum.
