Category Archives: Pollution

World fails to meet a single target to stop destruction of nature – UN report

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‘Humanity at a crossroads’ after a decade in which all of the 2010 Aichi goals to protect wildlife and ecosystems have been missed

The world has failed to meet a single target to stem the destruction of wildlife and life-sustaining ecosystems in the last decade, according to a devastating new report from the UN on the state of nature.

From tackling pollution to protecting coral reefs, the international community did not fully achieve any of the 20 Aichi biodiversity targets agreed in Japan in 2010 to slow the loss of the natural world. It is the second consecutive decade that governments have failed to meet targets.

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Pollutionwatch: air pollution in China falling, study shows

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Annual deaths have dropped to 1990 levels after 2013 peak thanks to concerted action in key cities

It is a long time since images of a smoggy Beijing were in the news. India now leads the World Health Organization’s (WHO) league table of polluted cities.

A new study shows that annual deaths from air pollution in China peaked in 2013 and are now below 1990 levels. Concerted action reduced particle pollution in 74 key Chinese cities by an average of 33% between 2013 and 2017.

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Illegal devices that bypass vehicle emissions controls spread across US

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Thousands of tons of pollution spew into the air in the US from devices that proliferate online and in body shops

When officials at the Environmental Protection Agency began investigating Freedom Performance, LLC, they didn’t have to look very hard for evidence that the company was violating the Clean Air Act. According to legal documents, the Florida car parts distributor literally advertised violations on its website.

“The road to hell is often paved with good intentions,” stated one ad for a kit to remove federally required emissions controls from diesel trucks. It identified a particular emissions control system that “is certainly noble in its intent” but “in reality it is putting your engine through hell … The best solution is deletion.”

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Covid turns tide on India’s Ganesh festival traditions

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Thousands of ritual statues are dunked into the sea off Mumbai each year – but coronavirus and pollution concerns are forcing change

In the quiet housing estate of Angrewadi in the heart of Girgaon in south Mumbai, people are celebrating the 100th consecutive year of the Ganesh Chaturthi, the Hindu festival of the elephant-headed god of new beginnings. Statues of Lord Ganesh are brought into homes and put on display for offerings and prayers.

On the 11th and final day of the festival, the ritual of Ganesh Visarjan takes place – falling this year on 1 September. The statues, normally made of soluble plaster of paris, are traditionally carried in a public procession with music and chanting, and are then immersed in either a river or the sea. Here, they slowly dissolve in a ceremony that dramatises the Hindu view of the ephemeral nature of life – but also causes widespread pollution.

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Infants exposed to air pollution have less lung power as adolescents – study

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Researchers find that even exposure to levels below EU limits has an impact

Infants exposed to even low levels of air pollution experience reduced lung function as children and teenagers, researchers have found.

Their study found that exposure to air pollution in the first year of life reduced lung function development from the ages of six to 15, even at pollution levels below EU standards.

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The plastic we use unthinkingly every day is killing our planet – and slowly but surely killing us | Andrew Paris

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As researchers, we have been shocked to find the most remote depths of the Pacific Ocean polluted by our plastic. And it will outlive us all.

Another bottle. Yet another one. We are 200km from land, in the middle of the South Pacific, and this is the third bottle we’ve found already this morning.

Everywhere is plastic.

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Small crustacean can fragment microplastics in four days, study finds

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‘Completely unexpected’ finding is significant as harmful effects of plastic might increase as particle size decreases

Small crustaceans can fragment microplastics into pieces smaller than a cell within 96 hours, a study has shown.

Until now, plastic fragmentation has been largely attributed to slow physical processes such as sunlight and wave action, which can take years and even decades.

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Extinction Rebellion protesters lock themselves to rig on River Thames

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Activists want London mayor Sadiq Khan to cancel Silvertown road tunnel project

Three Extinction Rebellion activists have locked themselves to a rig in the middle of the Thames to protest against a planned road tunnel underneath the river in south-east London.

The keys to the locks around the protesters’ necks have been delivered to the capital’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, with a note asking him to come and talk to them. However, the mayor’s office issued a statement ignoring the request and confirming plans to build the Silvertown tunnel are continuing.

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$10bn of precious metals dumped each year in electronic waste, says UN

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A fast growing mountain of toxic e-waste is polluting the planet and damaging health, says new report

At least $10bn (£7.9bn) worth of gold, platinum and other precious metals are dumped every year in the growing mountain of electronic waste that is polluting the planet, according to a new UN report.

A record 54m tonnes of “e-waste” was generated worldwide in 2019, up 21% in five years, the UN’s Global E-waste Monitor report found. The 2019 figure is equivalent to 7.3kg for every man, woman and child on Earth, though use is concentrated in richer nations. The amount of e-waste is rising three times faster than the world’s population, and only 17% of it was recycled in 2019.

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Revealed: raw sewage poured into Olympic Park wildlife haven

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Thames Water overflow pipe pumped waste for 1,000 hours into London wetlands last year

Raw sewage was discharged for more than 1,000 hours from a Thames Water overflow pipe into an environmental wetland at the Olympic Park last year, the Guardian can reveal.

The combined sewer overflow (CSO) at Mulberry Court pumped untreated waste 91 times into the waterway that feeds into the River Lea. To April this year, the same CSO has so far discharged for 34 hours in 20 incidents.

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Exclusive: water firms discharged raw sewage into England’s rivers 200,000 times in 2019

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Untreated effluent flowed into waterways for more than 1.5m hours, data shows

Water companies in England discharged raw sewage into rivers on more than 200,000 occasions last year, according to data obtained by the Guardian.

The analysis reveals untreated human waste was released into streams and rivers for more than 1.5m hours in 2019.

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‘Swim happy!’: family save bear found swimming with a plastic jar on its head – video

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A family were fishing on a lake in Wisconsin when they spotted a bear with a plastic jar stuck on its head. After several attempts at moving their boat next to the bear and removing the jar, they were finally able to free the animal. 'Never dreamt we would ever do this in our life time,' Tricia Hurt wrote on Facebook. 'Out on Marshmiller Lake yesterday with Brian Hurt and Brady Hurt when we spotted this poor bear. He made it to shore after all that'

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How do you deal with 9m tonnes of suffocating seaweed?

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Across the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, scientists are developing alternative sustainable solutions to the golden tide of Sargassum

The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, first detected by Nasa observation satellites in 2011 and now known to be the world’s largest bloom of seaweed, stretches for 5,500 miles (8,850km) from the Gulf of Mexico to the western coast of Africa.

Millions of tonnes of floating Sargassum seaweed in coastal waters smother fragile seagrass habitats, suffocate coral reefs and harm fisheries. And once washed ashore on Mexican and Caribbean beaches, this foul-smelling, rotting seaweed goes on to devastate the tourist industry, prevent turtles from nesting and damage coastal ecosystems, while releasing hydrogen sulphide and other toxic gases as it decomposes.

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Russian mining giant admits pumping wastewater into Arctic tundra

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Norilsk Nickel suspends workers at metals plant who dumped the water in ‘flagrant violation of operating rules’

A Russian mining giant said on Sunday it had suspended workers at a metals plant who were responsible for pumping wastewater into nearby Arctic tundra.

Independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta published videos from the scene showing large metal pipes carrying wastewater from the reservoir and dumping foaming liquid among nearby trees.

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Omission of air pollution from report on Covid-19 and race ‘astonishing’

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Failure to consider dirty air as a factor in higher death toll among ethnic minorities wholly irresponsible, say critics

The failure to consider air pollution as a factor in the higher rates of coronavirus deaths among minority ethnic groups is “astonishing” and “wholly irresponsible”, according to critics of a Public Health England review.

The PHE report released on Tuesday confirmed the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on people from ethnic minorities but did not mention air pollution. Minorities in the UK, US and elsewhere are known to generally experience higher levels of air pollution, and there is growing evidence around the world linking exposure to dirty air exposure to increased coronavirus infections and deaths.

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Putin orders state of emergency after huge fuel spill inside Arctic Circle

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President lambasts power plant owner ‘for not reporting earlier’ incident bigger than Kerch spill

Vladimir Putin has ordered a state of emergency after 20,000 tonnes of diesel fuel spilled into a river inside the Arctic Circle.

The spill occurred when a fuel reservoir at a power plant near the city of Norilsk collapsed on Friday.

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Microplastic pollution in oceans vastly underestimated – study

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Particles may outnumber zooplankton, which underpin marine life and regulate climate

The abundance of microplastic pollution in the oceans is likely to have been vastly underestimated, according to research that suggests there are at least double the number of particles as previously thought.

Scientists trawled waters off the coasts of the UK and US and found many more particles using nets with a fine mesh size than when using coarser ones usually used to filter microplastics. The addition of these smaller particles to global estimates of surface microplastics increases the range from between 5tn and 50tn particles to 12tn-125tn particles, the scientists say.

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‘People are more scared of hunger’: coronavirus is just one more threat in Nigeria

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The pandemic has left many people in Orile, Lagos state, struggling for survival – and compounded the risks of the area’s heavily polluted air and water supply

  • All photographs by Nurudeen Olugbade

For Nurudeen Olugbade taking photographs of life in Orile-Iganmu, Lagos state, during the pandemic is a way to affirm that the disruption it has wrought on the neglected town does matter.

“We are not really seen. There’s very little attention paid to us but the struggle out here is real,” says Olugbade, 28, who has documented the crisis on his phone.

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Microplastics discovered blowing ashore in sea breezes

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Finding could help solve mystery of where plastic goes after it leaks into the sea

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of mismanaged waste could be blowing ashore on the ocean breeze every year, according to scientists who have discovered microplastics in sea spray.

The study, by researchers at the University of Strathclyde and the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées at the University of Toulouse, found tiny plastic fragments in sea spray, suggesting they are being ejected by the sea in bubbles. The findings, published in the journal Plos One, cast doubt on the assumption that once in the ocean, plastic stays put, as well as on the widespread belief in the restorative power of sea breeze.

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Greta Thunberg and children’s group hit back at attempt to throw out climate case

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Brazil, France and Germany say UN can’t hear complaint against five countries of flouting child rights to clean air

Greta Thunberg and a group of other children have pushed forward their legal complaint at the UN against countries they accuse of endangering children’s wellbeing through the climate crisis, despite attempts to have it thrown out.

The 16 children, including the Swedish environmental activist, lodged a legal case with the UN committee on the rights of the child against Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey last September.

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