Category Archives: Pollution

US and UK yet to show support for global treaty to tackle plastic pollution

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More than two-thirds of UN member states have declared they are open to a new agreement to stem the rising tide of plastic waste

Support is growing internationally for a new global treaty to tackle the plastic pollution crisis, it has emerged, though so far without the two biggest per capita waste producers – the US and the UK – which have yet to signal their participation.

A UN working group on marine litter and microplastics met at a virtual conference last week to discuss the issue. More than two-thirds of UN member states, including African, Baltic, Caribbean, Nordic and Pacific states, as well as the EU, have declared they are open to considering the option of a new agreement.

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Fears for a million livelihoods in Kenya and Tanzania as Mara River fish die out

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Water biodiversity is on the brink, with dire consequences for the region known for the zebra and wildebeest migration, says WWF

Fish are being driven to extinction in the Mara River basin, putting the livelihoods of more than a million people in Kenya and Tanzania in jeopardy, according to WWF.

A report by the wildlife NGO details how farming, deforestation, mining, illegal fishing and invasive species could sound a death knell for the transboundary river.

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Raw sewage dumped into English and Welsh beaches ‘2,900 times this year’

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Exclusive: public health and environment at risk as water companies overuse emergency overflows, says pressure group

Water companies discharged raw sewage into bathing water beaches almost 3,000 times in the past year, polluting the environment and risking public health, new analysis shows.

Related: Face masks and gloves found on 30% of UK beaches in clean-up

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Tiny air pollution rise linked to 11% more Covid-19 deaths – study

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Evidence is now strong enough that preventive action should be taken, scientists say

A small rise in people’s long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with an 11% increase in deaths from Covid-19, research has found. Another recent study suggests that 15% of all Covid-19 deaths around the world are attributable to dirty air.

The available data only allows correlations to be established and further work is needed to confirm the connections, but the researchers said the evidence was now strong enough that levels of dirty air must be considered a key factor in handling coronavirus outbreaks.

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Rotten river: life on one of the world’s most polluted waterways – photo essay

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Indonesia’s Citarum is relied upon by millions, but decades of pollution have choked it with chemicals and rubbish

  • Words and pictures by Andrea Carrubba in Dayeuhkolot

The smell is the first thing that hits you on the banks of the Citarum River in West Java, Indonesia. The odour is dense: rubbish rotting in hot sun mixed in with an acrid tone of chemical waste.

Some 9 million people live in close contact with the river, where levels of faecal coliform bacteria are more than 5,000 times mandatory limits, according to the findings of the Asian Development Bank in 2013.

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Fish that eat microplastics take more risks and die younger, study shows

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Joint study conducted finds that fish fed a diet including plastic were more likely to be eaten themselves

Microplastics can alter the behaviour of fish, with those that ingest the pollutants likely to be bolder, more active and swim in risky areas where they die en masse, according to a new study.

The survival risk posed by microplastics is also exacerbated by degrading coral reefs, as dying corals make particularly younger fish more desperate to find nutrition and shelter, and to venture into waters where they are more likely to be taken by predators themselves.

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Polluted air killing half a million babies a year across globe

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State of Global Air report says indoor air quality causing two-thirds of the deaths and affecting health in the womb

Air pollution last year caused the premature death of nearly half a million babies in their first month of life, with most of the infants being in the developing world, data shows.

Exposure to airborne pollutants is harmful also for babies in the womb. It can cause a premature birth or low birth weight. Both of these factors are associated with higher infant mortality.

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Singapore launches Covid-secure luxury cruises … to nowhere

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City state follows Qantas in offering jaunts with no destination with ships half full and masks mandatory

Singapore is launching Covid-secure cruise holidays to nowhere, in the latest attempt to offer a long-distance travel experience with no stops.

Australian airline Qantas drew criticism from environmental groups last month after advertising a seven-hour round trip from Sydney including fly-pasts of famous sights including Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef.

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Air pollution particles in young brains linked to Alzheimer’s damage

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Exclusive: if discovery is confirmed it will have global implications as 90% of people breathe dirty air

Tiny air pollution particles have been revealed in the brain stems of young people and are intimately associated with molecular damage linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

If the groundbreaking discovery is confirmed by future research, it would have worldwide implications because 90% of the global population live with unsafe air. Medical experts are cautious about the findings and said that while the nanoparticles are a likely cause of the damage, whether this leads to disease later in life remains to be seen.

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Russian rocket fuel leak likely cause of marine animal deaths

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Injured surfers and large number of dead sea creatures reported in Kamchatka region

Water pollution in Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula that caused sea creatures to wash up dead on beaches has prompted fears that rocket fuel stored in the region’s military testing grounds may have leaked.

The pollution came to light late last month after surfers reported stinging eyes and said the water had changed colour and developed an odour. Officials later confirmed the surfers had sustained mild burns to their corneas.

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Robots and magnetic soap: scientists rethink oil spill clean-ups

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Incidents such as tanker stranding in Mauritius stress need for quick and effective solutions

Special sponges, magnetic soap and autonomous robots are among the latest wave of inventions aimed at tackling oil spills.

Incidents such as the tanker stranding in Mauritius in August can devastate the environment and threaten communities who rely on the sea or tourism for their livelihoods. They often take months or years to clean up.

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Britain’s oil and gas rigs most polluting in North Sea, says report

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Release of CO2 from UKCS rigs was much greater than Norwegian and Danish regions

Britain’s oil and gas rigs are the most polluting in the North Sea oil basin, according to industry data, with enough unwanted gas burned off every year to heat a million homes.

Oil rigs in the UK continental shelf (UKCS) released 13.1m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere last year, according to data from Rystad Energy, significantly more than those from the Norwegian and Danish regions of the North Sea, which produced 10.4m tonnes and 1.4m tonnes of CO2 respectively in the same year.

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Device to curb microplastic emissions wins James Dyson award

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Tyre attachment designed by four students aims to reduce road transport pollution

A device that captures microplastic particles from tyres as they are emitted – and could help reduce the devastating pollution they cause – has won its designers a James Dyson award.

The Tyre Collective, a group of masters students from Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art, scooped the UK prize of the international competition with their solution for the growing environmental scourge of tyre wear caused by road transport.

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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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