#polluted rivers

The Tories caused this pollution crisis by privatising our water utilities.

January 16, 2021 | “Top 19 Most Polluted Rivers in the World in 2020”

I was reading about the Ganges River, which is “a river of northern India and Bangladesh, which rises in the Himalayas and flows some 2,700 km (1,678 miles) southeast to the Bay of Bengal, where it forms the world’s largest delta” (source). Another thing about the Ganges River is that parts of it are very, very polluted, and the photographs of these polluted parts are ... unsettling and disturbing.

If the Ganges River ranks number 1 in the most-polluted-rivers-in-the-world list, what are the other rivers? This question led me to the article titled “Top 19 Most Polluted Rivers in the World in 2020” by Conserve Energy Future. Unhonourable mentions include the Citarum River in Indonesia, the Yellow River in China, and the Sarno River in Italy. Number 12 on the list is the Nile River.

It is recommended to not swim in (stagnant parts of) the Nile River. Otherwise, you might get schistosomiasis, “an acute and chronic parasitic disease caused by blood flukes (trematode worms) of the genus Schistosoma” (source).

The whole list is very depressing. And it’s not just about cleaning up the rivers, whatever that may entail. It requires a restructuring of ... of processes, of regulations, of sensitivity, of attention, of resources, of mentalities? And I don’t mean for those places only. A lot of the pollution is industrial. Demand (i.e., consumers) makes up half of the supply-and-demand model. Imagine x product creates y pollution; consider, then: Do you need this product? Must you buy this product?