Water

Wastewater treatment
Copyright Environmental Protection Agency

In our towns there is a waste water treatment plant which cleans up the sewage from pipes in our houses when toilets are flushed.

In our towns too, there is a clean water treatment plant which cleans up the water people drink.

So it is very safe to live in town.

This was not the case long ago.

In the town of Hamelin in Germany hundreds of years ago people threw all their waste into the streets.

There were no bin lorries, no pipes for the sewage – it ended up on the street too.

The rats ate up all the rubbish.

There were so many rats in Hamelin that the Major got afraid the people would catch a disease, so he offered a reward to anyone who could get rid of the rats.

Our water is really safe to drink because our Local Authorities clean it before it goes to house taps.

Lots of families in Africa and India have no taps in their house and they have to walk for miles to a well and carry home the water in buckets or jars.

If the well is polluted because of floods, sewage or other waste then the people using it will get sick.

We are lucky in Ireland that we can afford to always have clean water.