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The Aare River in Bern, Switzerland has an interesting fact. In the past, this river could be said to be dirty and shabby, like other rivers and lakes in Switzerland.
"Today, clean water flow, rivers and lakes are common in Switzerland and this country is a model in terms of water quality. It's hard to believe that in Swiss lakes, bathing there used to be off limits," Swissinfo quoted us as saying.
Michael Hengartner, a Swiss-Canadian biochemist and molecular biologist, once mentioned that in the past, the water quality in Switzerland was much worse than it is now. Foam floats in many places in the river and there is a stretch of algae in the lake.
Worse yet, a lot of wastewater flows. That's because until the 1960s, only about 15% of the population in Switzerland was connected to sewage treatment. So, the waste water is sometimes directly dumped in the river. Even the waste from factories that contain toxins is directly flowed away. Bad isn't it?
Michael Scharer as a resident who served as the head of the Water Body Protection Section in his childhood had seen ships until they were deployed to pick up algae that had mushroomed in the lake.
Even when their parents were still alive, people often fell ill and had diarrhea if they accidentally swallowed water while swimming.
Water pollution is very obvious, with foam popping up on the surface, sometimes toilet paper, algae beds, and dead fish floating on the surface. Smells great too at the time.
In 1963, there was an outbreak of typhus in a mountain resort, in which 3 people died and 450 fell ill. It is suspected that it has something to do with pollution in the waters.
This situation made the Swiss people want to act and they asked for a policy change so that the waters in Switzerland are not dirty anymore. In 1971, wastewater management finally had a legal order.
The Swiss government's seriousness in managing wastewater and the awareness of its citizens has paid off. In 2005, 97% of the population was connected to centralized wastewater management. In 2017, the sewer network was 130 thousand kilometers long and there were 800 waste water treatment centers.
However, the costs involved are not cheap. Expansion of sewage system infrastructure and others, requires approximately 50 billion Swiss francs.
The results are indeed encouraging with Scharer calling Switzerland's efforts to clean and protect waters a success story. Residents can swim without fear of swallowing water and the tourists are amazed. According to him, this is a luxury, including how water can be drunk directly from the tap.
In the future there are still challenges, such as filtering out micropollutants. The Swiss government plans to complement waste management with the addition of anti-micropollutant technology which does not currently exist.