The expert on the country's old water pipes: "Must bring out the stock exchange"

Magnus Bäckström has previously worked for Swedish Water and there worked on various projects linked to the municipalities' VA system.

He says that today there is not an increasing number of outages linked to water leaks - but under all Swedish cities there are thousands of miles of water pipes that are starting to age.

Unless investment to replace them increases, it will mean problems.

Double the investments

- We will see an increasing number of operational disruptions.

If there is an emergency leak, we will have to shut off the water.

If you look ahead a few years and we don't do anything about this, there is a risk of that, says Magnus Bäckström.

According to Magnus Bäckström, municipalities need to double their investments in VA systems going forward.

- If the investment today is 10 or 100 million, then in a decade it needs to be 20 or 200 million.

A backbone for society

He describes the VA systems as a backbone for societies to function, and believes that the large industrial investments that are now taking place in northern Sweden are an excellent opportunity to seriously tackle the problems.

- We are expanding our cities.

There is industrialization and a green social transition.

Now is a good time to think about how we take care of what we have and how we build new ones.

In the clip, you hear Magnus Bäckström tell more about the thousands of miles old water pipes under Sweden's cities.