Chinese official declines $30,000 bet to swim in Ruian river, says it is people not industry that polluted it

Oh the irony, read the Guardian

Last week, an eyeglass-retailer executive from Rui’an City, coastal Zhejiang province, offered the city’s environmental protection chief Bao Zhenming more than £20,000 to take a 20-minute dip in a highly polluted local river. The entrepreneur, Jin Zengmin, posted the dare to his microblog beneath pictures showing the waterway overflowing with discarded aluminum cans, polystyrene boxes and paper lanterns. He blamed the river’s industrial demise on dumping by a local rubber shoe factory.

The Rui’an government responded by saying that most of the river’s pollution was caused by individuals, not factories, and could be attributed to overpopulation. Bao has since declined the offer.

Via Inhabitat

(Another river in China, ‘likely to scare off many potential swimmers’)