The ecology park in Xianju county in Taizhou city, Zhejiang on May 28, 2016. [Photo/IC]

The provincial government set a 3-year target, striving to eliminate black, stinky and garbage-covered rivers, make waters non-toxic and ultimately make them fit for swimming.

In that time, the province created new positions called river managers. There are six provincial-level river managers, 199 city-level river managers, 2,688 county-level river managers, 16,417 town-level river managers and tens of thousands of village-level ones.

Till now, 6,500 kilometres of garbage-covered rivers have been cleaned, and 5,100 kilometres of black and stinky rivers have been renovated. More than 600 towns have installed sewage treatment facilities, 208 towns have updated their sewage treatment plants, and 6,536 kilometres of sewage pipes have been added to rural sewage treatment network, making Zhejiang the first province to be fully covered by sewage treatment facilities.