More than 200 million people are at risk of environmental toxicity

On November 4, environmental organizations warned hundreds of millions of people around the world are at risk of contamination due to environmental pollution.

According to the Blacksmith Institute, a US-based environmental watchdog, more than 200 million people in developing countries are at risk of health damage from pollution.

Blacksmith in collaboration with the Swiss Green Cross also announced a new list of "10 most polluted places in the world" - first published in 2007 - based on more than 2,000 review reports on regions pollution in 49 countries around the world.

The Agbogbloshie area in Ghana's capital city Accra, the second largest e-waste recycling site in West Africa, is on the list for the first time. Every year, Ghana imports about 215,000 tons of used consumer electronics and this number is expected to double by 2020.

Pollution in rivers is a concern.(Photo takepart.com)

The main health concern associated with recycling e-waste in Ghana is the burning of cables to get the copper core inside. Cables often contain a lot of heavy metals, including lead. Soil samples around the Agbogbloshie area have shown that concentrations of toxic metals are more than 45 times higher than permitted.

Blacksmith Research Director Jack Caravanos said e-waste really became a challenge and the growth rate of this waste is exponentially, when everyone wants to own a machine. computer, a laptop or other modern electronic devices.

A new area listed on this year's list is the Citarum river basin in West Java of Indonesia, where 9 million people live but there are 2,000 factories. The Citarum River, which is used to serve the daily needs of the people here as well as to supply water to the fields, has been polluted by a variety of poisons, including aluminum and manganese. Test of drinking water samples here shows that lead content exceeds 1,000 times the US standard.

Another area of ​​Indonesia, Kalimantan, on Borneo is also among the most polluted places in the world due to the expansion of small-scale handmade gold mines . Most workers here use mercury in the process of gold extraction, contributing to an increase in hazardous waste into the environment.

In this year's list, there is also Hazaribagh area in Bangladesh, where most of the tanneries are registered to operate in this country. Every day, workers here pump about 22,000 liters of hazardous waste, including 6-valent chromium which can cause cancer to the Buriganga River, the main river and essential water supply of Dhaka.

Seriously polluted sites also include the Niger River Delta in Nigeria and the Matanza-Riachuelo river basin in Argentina. Meanwhile, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant area in Ukraine and Kabwe lead mining city in Zambia for the second time are in the top 10 most polluted areas in the world.

In the report 6 years ago, China and India were the two most prominent names. However, this year, both countries have no pollution locations in the list above. This shows great progress in improving environmental quality in the two most populous countries in the world.