The United Nations once warned that by 2050, as many as 5.7 billion people could live in areas where there is not enough water. Rivers in Serbia are mostly polluted by municipal water and industrial plants.

Having clean, healthy drinking water in the era of industrialization and technological progress is the interest of every nation. Serbia has a significant interest in preserving its river courses. Unfortunately, a common picture is their pollution, whether it is directly thrown waste, most often plastic that takes hundreds of years to decompose, but also municipal water from the settlement. To all this, we should add the fact that many industrial plants in Serbia do not have their own wastewater treatment plants, so the polluted water from their plants reach our rivers untreated.

Due to all of the above, it is not surprising that the data show that most of the rivers in Serbia belong to the second and third class, while to the first belong smaller mountain watercourses and the upper reaches of certain rivers with clean water, and to the fourth “highly polluted water”.

As examples of the most polluted waters in Serbia, the Danube-Tisa-Danube canal in Vojvodina is often singled out, especially the Veliki Bački canal and the Bor river that flows into the Timok. The Bor River is cited as one of the most polluted Serbian and European rivers, which many people call it “a dead river”. “There are no traces of life left in it, and due to high pollution, it does not belong to any class”, according to the available data.

The uncontrolled discharge of polluted water into our rivers also disturbs the underground water system, the recovery of which requires significantly more time. Water pollution also affects the quality of the soil and thus the quality of agricultural production, of all those products which are significant for human life.

Communal water from households in Serbia often reaches the rivers untreated, first of all the municipal water flows into the immediate contamination of the land surrounding the settlement and then it also reaches the rivers where they affect the change in the biodiversity of the river course.

The available data show that there are 36 wastewater treatment plants in Serbia, but realistically, much more are necessary to preserve the natural environment and the healthy life of people.

Water is a key resource for sustaining life on Earth, and for example, according to the research of the Institute for Public Health of Serbia “Dr. Milan Jovanović Batut” conducted in 2018, out of 42 controlled public water supply systems in Vojvodina, only nine were correct.

That is why Serbia is trying to change this image. The “Clean Serbia” project aims to preserve the natural environment and preserve our rivers. Hundreds of kilometers of already built utility networks, new contracts with cities and municipalities will enable Serbia to preserve its water wealth, and the citizens of Serbia to live a life worthy of a developed community.

“Clean Serbia” preserves the ecosystem and strives to keep the key life resource – drinking water – healthy. Every citizen can make his contribution by changing his attitude towards rivers, by disposing of garbage in designated places and not in rivers, avoid water pollution with chemicals that are difficult to process, use biodegradable products.

Together with “Clean Serbia” it is possible to take a step forward towards the quality of our waters.