1/3 of China’s Yellow River Not Fit for Any Use!

Talk about pollution and its resulting damages all around the world. From air to water, we the humans, the so called advanced civilized beings are trying our best to pollute this world of ours as much as we can, and as soon as we can.

We use the natural resources as if they will be never be depleted. We create pollution as a result of our advancements hoping that all man-made will also get decayed and recycled like other natural wastes. Such is the level of delusion of ours – the worthy human beings!

Now consider the current situation of China’s Yellow River. One third of it is not fit for any use, not even for industrial use! If that was not enough alarming; only one-sixth of its water is safe to drink, according to a bulletin released by the Chinese government over the weekend.

The report accounts results of a 2007 study that surveyed water quality along the 5,464 kilometer long river, which has become increasingly polluted from booming riverside industries and raw human sewage.

Li Xiaoqiang of the Yellow River Conservancy Committee, which ran the study, called for “urgent action” to save the river, and added forlornly: “I wish that a harmony could be achieved between development, utilization and protection of the river someday.”

The study monitored the river’s mainstream and its five tributaries with the combined length of 13,492.7 kilometers. It was found that 4,557.6 km, or 33.8 percent of the waterways are polluted and have been classified as type-five-negative. The UNEP considers level five water to be unfit for drinking, aquaculture (such as fish farming and oyster farming), agriculture, and industrial use.

Only 16.1 percent of water was rated one or two and was considered safe for drinking and household use. According to the report, of the 4.29 tons of pollution dumped into the river, industry and manufacturing waste accounts for 70 percent and the rest is made up of human sewage.

Yellow River is the second longest river of China and the sixth longest in the world. Often called China’s “Mother River,” the Yellow River is tremendously important in Chinese culture. The first signs of northern civilizations sprang around the Yellow River basin.

It is painful to know that we are destroying our eco-system with our own deeds in name of development, civilization, and industrialization. It is about time my friends that we need to get serious about our wrong-doings. We need to save our water, our air, “our planet” before we, the inhabitants destruct our Mother Earth by our very own hands!