Dirty Old China?

The state of China's rivers and the toxic level of pollution in the drinking water are covered in a Torygraph article:

"A new phrase has become current in China as the country comes to terms with the environmental devastation caused by its explosive economic growth: "cancer villages".

Not long ago they were farming settlements in the vast countryside. Now they are dominated by factories and blighted by the disease crippling their inhabitants.

Government figures show that 300 million people regularly drink polluted water and the effects are clear in the cancer village of Xiditou, near the port city of Tianjin, south-east of Beijing. "

And The Times comments:

"THE fabled Yangtze River, the third-longest in the world, is already dying from pollution and could be dead within five years.

The river’s plight reflects the water crisis facing the world’s most highly populated country.

China’s 1.3 billion people are already short of supplies because of prolonged drought in many regions — and much of what remains has been contaminated by industrialisation.

About 40 per cent of all waste water produced in China — some 25 billion tonnes per annum — flows into the river, but more than 80 per cent of it is untreated beforehand. "

and some people worry about a hose pipe ban?