Dead water: what does Chitarum look like - the dirtiest river on the planet

The problem of river pollution is acute all over the world. But in some places it has turned into a full-fledged ecological disaster. The Chitarum River in West Java, Indonesia, is officially recognized as the dirtiest in the world. And this is actually true, because in some places, due to a layer of garbage, water is simply not visible. Yes, and the water itself includes the entire periodic table and it is dangerous to immerse even a finger in it.

The Chitarum River, sometimes called the Citarum, is 300 km long. It seems that this is not much, but on the island of Java it is one of the longest and deepest. Its width does not exceed 100, and the depth is 5 meters. On the banks of the Chitarum there are about 1000 settlements, in which more than 5 million people live. In total, 28 million inhabitants of the island of Java depend on the river.

There is one industrial enterprise for every 2 km of the river. These are metallurgical and chemical plants, as well as clothing and food factories. They all discharge sewage and all solid waste into the river. Local residents are not far behind, accustomed to treating the river as a natural dump. In some backwaters of the waterway, the layer of debris reaches 1.5 meters!

The sources of the Chitarum are on the slopes of the Wayang and Windu mountains. Perhaps the mountainous part of the river is the only conditionally clean area. The river flows into the Java Sea, while most of the solid waste is trapped in the 3 HPP dams. But chemicals dissolved in water freely enter the World Ocean, poisoning it hundreds of kilometers from the branched river delta.

There are almost no fish in the waters of the Chitarum, and animals and birds do not live on the banks. But the river is a real nursery for bacteria and dangerous parasites, which have adapted well in a toxic environment. An unprepared person is afraid to look at the water of Chitarum. Under a layer of debris, it shimmers with all the colors of the rainbow.

Nevertheless, for millions of Javanese, the river is the only source of drinking and industrial water. Needless to say, the river literally takes years of life from the local population - mortality in this region is higher than in other parts of the country.

Once upon a time, fish from Chitarum was sold all over West Java. Today there is no fishing here. All those who were once fed by the fish river were retrained as scavengers. Former fishermen wade through the debris in their boats, picking out recyclables from the water.

It's hard to believe, but 40 years ago Chitarum was a clean river, carrying its waters through the emerald jungle. Its shores were considered a prestigious place to live, and local rich people and foreigners built villas here. But in the early 80s, an economic boom began in Indonesia, and factories, workers' settlements, and then cities began to appear along the river. The consumer attitude to natural resources has led to irreparable consequences.

This is not to say that the Indonesian government is ignoring the Chitarum issue. The river flows only 30 km from the country's capital, Jakarta. The Asian Bank once allocated $500 million (42.4 billion rubles) to clean up the riverbed. Of course, this money was not enough. At their expense, they paid for the construction of several dams trapping garbage, and also cleared the coast a little. Unfortunately, the result of these works is completely invisible against the backdrop of ongoing large-scale pollution.

The Indonesian river has competitors who, although they have not caught up with it in terms of pollution, are striving to do so.