It has long been no secret that most types of human activity have a destructive effect on the environment. For the desire to live in comfortable conditions, mankind pays for dirty air and poisoned ponds. Sadly enough, over the last hundred years, marked by an unprecedented rise in different spheres of production, people have destroyed more natural resources than in the whole previous history of their existence. Today we invite you to a virtual tour of the dirtiest river on the planet you can imagine - the Tsitarum River, flowing in the west of Indonesia .
Citarum River, Indonesia
It's hard to believe, but still some half a century ago the Tsitarum River no one would dare to call the dirtiest in the world. She calmly carried her water through the territory of Western Java, being a source of livelihood for all the surrounding residents. The main way for the local population to earn a living was fishing and growing rice, the water for which also came from the Citarum. The river was so full that on the Lake Sagulng, which it feeds, the French engineers were able even to build the largest hydropower plant in Indonesia .
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But the rise of industry that came in the 1980s put an end to the ecological well-being of the entire Tsitarum River basin. On the river banks as mushrooms after the rain, more than 500 different industrial enterprises appeared, each of which sends all its waste directly to the river.
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Despite the rather rapid development of industry, Indonesia has been and remains at the lowest level in terms of sanitary conditions. Therefore, even here there is no question of centralized removal and utilization of domestic waste, or the laying of sewers and the construction of purification facilities. All of them go indiscriminately to the waters of the Tsitarum River.
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Today, the state of the Tsitarum River can be called critical without any exaggeration. An unprepared person today is unlikely to be able to guess that under the piles of all rubbish there is a river in general. Only light boats slowly passing through huge piles of decaying waste can lead to the thought that there is water down there.
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Given the circumstances, most of the local residents changed their specialization. Now the main source of income for them is not fishing, but the objects thrown into the river. Every morning, local men and teenagers recover to the floating dump, in the hope that their catch will be successful, and the found things can be washed and sold. Sometimes they are lucky, and hunting for garbage brings about 1.5-2 pounds a week. In most cases, the search for treasure leads to severe illnesses, and often to the death of the getter.
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But even those of the local residents, who can afford not to collect waste, are not completely free from the risk of getting sick. The thing is that despite the excessive amount of harmful substances, the Citarum, as before, remains the only source of drinking water for all surrounding settlements. That is, local residents are forced to cook food and drink water almost from the garbage.
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Over 5 years ago, the Asian Development Bank allocated more than $ 500 million to North American dollars for the purification of the Citarum. But, despite such a powerful monetary infusion, the banks of the Citarum are hiding to this day under piles of garbage. Environmentalists predict that in the near future, garbage will crush the river so much that the power plant, which is powered by it, will stop operating. Perhaps then, after the closure of enterprises on the banks of the Citarum, the situation is at least a little, but it will improve.