20 Places You Should Never Ever Swim

1. Citarum River, Indonesia

Citarum River, Indonesia

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Thinking about taking a refreshing dip in Indonesia’s longest river? Think again. Java is a tropical paradise that beckons visitors keen to explore its beautiful lands. But Citarum’s hazardous waters couldn’t be in a worse condition.

This is a river considered the most polluted on the planet. This is not a place to practice your strokes. Some 20,000 tons of waste and 340,000 tons of waste water are dumped direct into the river every day, with 2,000 or so industrial sites responsible for wreaking environmental damage on a devastating scale.

Citarum is highly toxic and deadly, its waters rich in mercury, lead and arsenic, and presenting great dangers to human health. There are areas where you cannot even see the water for all the rubbish and dead animals that are floating on the surface. The world’s dirtiest river is a depressing sight, one to avoid at all costs.

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