China’s Yellow River is 10% sewage
‘Untreated sewage from factory discharges and urban centres now accounts for 10 per cent of the Yellow River’s flow, a prominent Chinese group says.
The volume of waste water flowing into the river, China’s second longest, doubled from 2 billion tonnes to 4.3 billion between 1980 and 2005, Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Beijing-based NGO, told the China Daily.
“It now accounts for about one-tenth of its total volume,” Ma said.
The 5,464-km river supplies water to more than 150 million people and irrigates 15 per cent of the country’s farmland, but has lost a third of its fish species and is 70 per cent unfit for drinking or swimming, state media have reported.’
