India holds roughly 18% of the world’s population but only about 4% of its renewable freshwater resources, raising the stakes of river degradation. Across the country, untreated industrial wastewater contaminates rivers including the Yamuna, Ganga, Sabarmati and Jojari, with many tributaries critically degraded and facing functional collapse in coming decades. A major contributor is the textile and tannery industry, which consumes vast amounts of water and generates difficult-to-remove waste. Polluted rivers threaten drinking water, farm productivity, public health and local economies. Studies near Kanpur’s tanneries show chromium in groundwater far…
Read MoreThe River Crisis: Why Industry Must Begin to Lead Cleanup
