Estonia, chapter 4 The environment Water Drinking-water is taken from both ground water and surface water.
Rural populations use water from drilled or shallow dug wells.
Industrial and municipal wastewater, discharged into surface water without sufficient treatment, is the main source of water pollution. Many towns and settlements, such as Tartu, have no sewage treatment facilities and the facilities in others, such as Tallinn, are inefficient. Hundreds of millions of tonnes of waste are estimated to be stored in fills, ash hills and dumps, most of which do not meet environmental protection or maintenance requirements. So far, the authorities have systematically dealt with household waste only. Formerly, industrial manufacturers were left to solve their own problems, which were mainly to do with poor management and the lack of modern treatment technologies.