When we live in such a wealthy country surrounded by natural beauty, it can be hard for Canadians to realize just how much effect pollution is having on the rest of the world.  Very often the developed world is using the developing world as its “refuse tipping ground” for waste that it can’t (or won’t) deal with. 

You can bet that our waste management habits would change if we didn’t operate with this “out of site, out of mind” paradigm.  It’s important to be informed about what’s happening around the globe, what the problems are and what’s being done about them.  Without awareness and information, the green movement would not exist.

Areas that researchers have declared the most polluted in the world are rarely known even in their own countries, yet, in total afflict more than 10 million people*.  The kinds of pollution in these areas leads to cancers, birth defects, mental retardation and low life expectancy.

The Top 10 most polluted places for 2006, in alphabetical order by country**:

• Linfen, China, where residents say they literally choke on coal dust in the evenings, exemplifies many Chinese cities;
• Haina, Dominican Republic, has severe lead contamination because of lead battery recycling, a problem common throughout poorer countries;
• Ranipet, India, where leather tanning wastes contaminate groundwater with hexavalent chromium, made famous by Erin Brockovich, resulting in water that apparently stings like an insect bite;
• Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan, home to nearly 2 million cubic meters of radioactive mining waste that threatens the entire Ferghana valley, one of the most fertile and densely populated areas in Central Asia that also experiences high rates of seismic activity;
• La Oroya, Peru, where the metal processing plant, owned by the Missouri-based Doe Run Corporation, leads to toxic emissions of lead;
• Dzerzinsk, Russia, one of the country’s principal chemical weapons manufacturing sites until the end of the Cold War;
• Norilsk, Russia, which houses the world’s largest heavy metals smelting complex;
• Rudnaya Pristan, Russia, where lead contamination resulted in child blood lead levels eight to 20 times maximum allowable U.S. levels;
• Chernobyl, Ukraine, infamous site of a nuclear meltdown 20 years ago; and,
• Kabwe, Zambia, where child blood levels of lead are five to 10 times the allowable EPA maximum.

*  Source: LiveScience.com. http://www.livescience.com/environment/061018_polluted_places.html
** Source: LiveScience.com. http://www.livescience.com/environment/061018_polluted_places.html