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Top Ten Most Polluted Places in the
World, 2007
This Top Ten list was compiled by the Technical Advisory Board of the
Blacksmith Institute, an environmental NGO based in New York. The
criteria used in ranking include the size of the affected
population, the severity of the toxins involved, and reliable evidence
of health problems associated with the pollution.
- Sumgayit, Azerbaijan
Forty factories that manufacture
industrial and agricultural chemicals release 70,000-120,000 tons of
detergents and pesticides into the air every year. Untreated sewage and
mercury-contaminated sludge are dumped arbitrarily.
- Linfen, China
Severe air and water pollution from the
coal, steel, and tar industries.
- Tianying, China
One of the largest lead production
bases in China with average lead concentrations in the air and soils 8.5
to 10 times national health standards.
- Sukinda, India
Twelve chromite ore mines dump
untreated water into the river, and over 30 million tons of waste rock
have been dumped in the valley's riverbanks, which has resulted in
severe water contamination.
- Vapi, India
There are over 100 industries covering
over 1,000 acres in the region that has contaminated local produce.
- La Oroya, Peru
Lead, copper, zinc, and sulfur dioxide
from mining have contaminated the town.
- Dzerzhinsk, Russia
A major Russian chemical
manufacturing center, which produced Sarin and other deadly poisons
during the Cold War. Between 1930-1998, nearly 300,000 tons of chemical
waste were improperly disposed of.
- Norilsk, Russia
An industrial city in Siberia founded
in 1935 as a slave labor camp, Norilsk is home of the world's largest
heavy metals smelting complex and is plagued by severe air pollution.
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Chernobyl, Ukraine
The world's worst nuclear disaster took
place on April 26, 1986. The 19-mile exclusion zone around the plant
remains uninhabitable.
- Kabwe, Zambia
The country's second largest city is
severely contaminated with lead from the mining industry.
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education,
Inc. All rights reserved.
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