SOME 1,000 people jogged along the banks of the Mapocho River in Santiago one Sunday afternoon, an activity that would have been unthinkable a few years ago due to its heavily polluted waters. For decades, 97 per cent of Santiago’s waste ended up in the 110-kilometre river flowing through the city, which almost resembled an open-air sewer as its stench forced passersby to hold their noses.
Now, the Chilean capital’s almost 10 million residents are breathing a sigh of relief after a novel sanitation process has transformed the once-dirty waterway. “It’s a source of pride to bring back something that had been all but lost, but is now in perfect condition,” Eulogio Cancino, 58, breathlessly told AFP at the finish line of a 10-kilometre (six-mile) race organized to celebrate the river’s reinvigoration. — AFP