When you’re in China, you have to do what the natives do, and that means boiling your tap water before you can drink it. Although some hotels and all restaurants offer boiled water to their guests, and you can buy bottled water, anything that comes out of a tap is not safe to drink. Although the water is good for bathing, it is recommended not to drink the water from the shower head for fear of getting sick. Experts also say that tourists should use bottled water to brush their teeth. That’s how lethal the local water is. There are definitely serious and widespread drinking water problems in China.
Lakes, rivers, and groundwater in China have become heavily polluted by industrial and agricultural waste and spills. All of this pollution, coupled with China’s high population and millions of people living in rural areas, has created a problem that the Chinese government is working to alleviate. Furthermore, China does not have adequate natural sources of fresh water, and of the water they do have, 70% is so polluted that it is considered unfit for human contact.
Three and a half million tons of sewage are produced every day in China. This means that the country should have at least 10,000 wastewater treatment plants in operation to treat even half. Unfortunately, they have much less than this number in business right now. This means that dozens of rural Chinese drink water contaminated with human and animal waste and filth. Even in the nation’s major cities, the level of municipal water contamination is much higher than federal standards allow.
The largest cash crop produced in China has always been rice, which is grown in water-filled paddy fields. Since much of the available water is toxic, people are reluctant to eat rice that may have been produced in unsafe water. This is devastating for the national income which is heavily dependent on rice production. People in China eat rice and drink water, and these things are responsible for outbreaks of serious diseases and other health problems.
Although government agencies are tightening standards for industrial waste, as well as those governing safe drinking water, China’s polluted water problem has gotten so out of hand that it will take years and billions of dollars to bring it back under control.