The dirtiest places in the world. What have we done!

Would you like to drink from the Riachuelo River in Argentina? And to live in the city of Kabwe in Zambia? And it is not necessary. These are some of the dirtiest places on the planet. We have collected some of these scary places where only people can survive.

Riachuelo River, Argentina

This is a narrow and very dirty river in Argentina. On its shore is Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. The Riachuelo is considered the dirtiest river in the world. Near it there are several chemical plants and industrial enterprises that release their waste into the river. The remains of life in the river are being killed by landfills along the banks and waste flowing from the slums.

Hazaribagh, Bangladesh

There are about 270 tanneries in the Hazaribagh administrative district of Bangladesh. Maybe the leather for your jacket is finished in Hazaribagh. As a rule, they use outdated technologies for processing raw materials using highly toxic materials. Every day, factories release over twenty thousand cubic meters of waste into the environment, including chromium, which causes cancer. You can imagine what the local atmosphere and soil is like.

Agbogbloshiy landfill, Ghana

Do you know where computers end their lives? They go to hell. More precisely, to the Agbogbloshi landfill, which is located in Accra, the capital of Ghana. It is the largest e-waste dump in West Africa. For almost twenty years, computer equipment from all over the world has been brought here. They are dismantled for non-ferrous metal and everything else. Valuable goes to the smelter, the rest is burned right there.

Citarum River, Indonesia

This is one of the dirtiest rivers in the world. Industrial and domestic wastes from the surroundings fall into it. The water of the Citarum River contains lead, cadmium, pesticides, chromium and other rubbish, which makes it unsuitable not only for drinking, but even for living nearby.

Kalimantan, Indonesia

As a result of gold mining in South and Central Kalimantan, about a thousand tons of mercury are released annually. This is slightly less than a third of all mercury emissions on earth. Nevertheless, travel agencies offer trips to Kalimantan (aka Borneo). Tourist places are, of course, far from the places of emissions, but looking at the photo, you no longer really want to go to this “little paradise”.

Niger Delta, Nigeria

For several decades, there has been abundant and sloppy oil production. For 25 years, more than 7,000 cases of “black gold” spills have been recorded here. Millions of barrels of oil ended up in the Niger River.

Dzerzhinsk, Russia

Little is said about this in Russia, but Dzerzhinsk, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, is one of the most polluted cities in the world. In 2007, it was even included in the Guinness Book of Records as the most polluted city on Earth. Dzerzhinsk is still the largest center of the country's chemical industry, and residents continue to live and raise children there.

Norilsk, Russia

Environmentalists consider Norilsk a disaster zone. It is surrounded by hundreds of thousands of hectares of dead forest tundra. Along with Dzerzhinsk, it is one of the most polluted cities not only in Russia, but also in the world. The cause of the ecological disaster is the enterprises for the processing of heavy metals. Every year, local factories emit more than four million tons of arsenic, zinc, cadmium, selenium, nickel and copper into the air.

It just so happened that human nature often does not appreciate all the beauty that nature provides to it: clean air, clear water, fertile soils. Our beautiful planet - the most beautiful in the entire solar system, according to astronauts - is seriously ill due to the activities of those who gave life. No alien invasions are needed - the Earth is systematically killed by the people living on it.

Unfortunately, this problem is only getting worse every year, because most of those in power have huge financial profits from industrial activities that destroy the ecology of the planet, and only want to exaggerate their wealth. At the same time, few of them think that they themselves cut a branch on which not only they sit, but also several billion people ...

This article takes a close look at the dirtiest places on the planet, where only humans can survive of all living beings.

Located in the west of Iran, along the banks of the Karun River, the city of Ahvaz is one of the world's top ecologically polluted places. A large city with a million inhabitants, the capital of the Khuzestan district and a key industrial center, is in a deplorable state due to the colossal volumes of thick smog that filled the air. According to the 2013 rating, Ahvaz is considered the city with the most polluted air on Earth: the pollution index is 373 units, with a critical indicator of 300 units!

The reason for such a deplorable state of the city are large oil producing enterprises and metallurgical plants. Ahvaz is the leader in Iran in terms of the amount of oil produced, and ordinary residents have to pay for this with part of their health: most people walking along the street wear respirators - it is deadly dangerous to be here without them.

But less than a hundred years ago, this gray and bulky industrial city covered in heavy smog clouds was a real oasis of trade with an abundance of architectural sights and green spaces! In place of today's indifferent workshops and warehouses, there were warehouses with the sweetest sugar in the Middle East, for which merchants from all over the region gathered.

The terrible ecological situation is aggravated by the arid hot climate, turning the life of the local people into a painful ordeal. From June to September, during the daytime, the thermometer rarely drops below 35 ° C, and there is practically no precipitation. Together with heavy air, all this creates a huge threat to human life.

In the middle of the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, a long river flows, called the Matanza, and closer to the place where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean, it is called the Riachuelo. It is narrow and extremely dirty: its waters contain a large amount of arsenic, zinc, copper and cobalt. The state has obliged many residents of the areas adjacent to the river to move away, since serious work is underway to purify water from toxic substances - because of their abundance, the river has already acquired a brown-brown color and a nasty smell!

According to experts from Greenpeace, the complete cleaning of the stinking river will take about 30 years, as well as considerable human, financial and intellectual resources. Near the Riachuelo River, there are several factories that have been dumping production waste into the water for a long time, and now you need to come up with new ways to get rid of slag without harming the surrounding area.

An incredible collection of man-made garbage has gathered in the North Pacific Ocean, between North America and Asia. For years, stormy ocean currents carried tons of dumped industrial waste, household garbage, waste from ships into one area, which led to the formation of a giant garbage island, the total area of ​​\u200b\u200bwhich, according to some versions, reaches 12-14 million square meters. km, which is more than the area of ​​the United States! This space contains up to 100 million tons of waste!

The scale of the ecological catastrophe is truly amazing, but what is much worse is the fact that the main material of most of the garbage is plastic. As you know, it does not completely decompose, but only rots and disintegrates over time into small fragments.

In ocean waters, these bits are like plankton: they don't sink, swimming close to the surface of the water, and gullible fish, birds, jellyfish, and marine animals are always a great snack. That's just the real plankton in this area of ​​the Pacific Ocean is many times less than the plastic remains, so innocent living creatures let poison into their stomach, which leads to an early death or hormonal mutations. Thousands of fish, seabirds and turtles die here every year...

Despite the shocking area of ​​the polluted territory, experts are developing comprehensive methods for cleaning the ocean from millions of tons of garbage.

In Hazaribagh, the center of leather production in Bangladesh, more than 90% of all leather enterprises in the country are concentrated. The methods used in this area of ​​production do not promise environmental cleanliness.

A solution of heavy chromium is used to treat the skin, and thousands of liters of this toxic substance are constantly poured into the local Buriganga River. Heavy chromium is extremely dangerous and causes the formation of cancer cells. In addition, tons of waste are burned daily at tanneries, which also negatively affects the purity of the atmosphere.

This large South Asian island is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, and the Indonesian part of it is the dirtiest. There is massive gold mining, providing food for thousands of people. Mercury is actively used in the process of gold prospecting.

According to experts, every year more than 1,000 tons of harmful substances are emitted into the atmosphere, which subsequently settles in rivers. Because the percentage of mercury in the local water is much higher than the allowable rate. The Indonesian government is visibly concerned about the situation, but so far the matter has not progressed beyond talk.

The situation in this African country is similar to Kalimantan: at the beginning of the 20th century, huge lead storage facilities were discovered here. Zambia was then a colony of England and was called Northern Rhodesia. The English rulers smelled big money and began active work on the extraction of lead, without thinking about its toxic danger to humans.

Factories and mines in the city of Kabwe have long been inoperative, lead mining has ceased, but its consequences come back to haunt the fifth generation of the Zambian population. The results of a blood test in children are amazing: the lead content in the blood sometimes exceeds the norm by 15 times! Some devices failed, being unable to endure such contaminated blood. However, the world community did not remain indifferent to the misfortune of Zambia: the World Bank donated 45 million dollars to work on the environmental cleansing of the country.

On the night of April 25-26, 1986, the worst man-made disaster in the history of mankind occurred: 120 times more radioactive substances were thrown into the sky over the Ukrainian town of Chernobyl than during the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ... The echoes of the tragedy will be felt for a long time to come , first of all, the countries of Eastern and Northern Europe, which received a colossal dose of radiation.

Now the 30-kilometer space within the radius of Chernobyl is an almost deserted and frozen in time exclusion zone - frightening and extinct. It includes the cities of Chernobyl, Pripyat, as well as parts of the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions.

Unfortunately, the sad experience of the past does little to teach mankind not to repeat old mistakes and start correcting the situation. Now environmental pollution is no less a problem than serious diseases. Actually, most of them are generated by environmental cataclysms. Of course, some places can no longer be completely cured, but it is quite within the power of a person to try to make sure that this does not continue further. If each of us understood that the future of planet Earth depends only on him, the air would become noticeably fresher, and the water cleaner.

More than 500,000 bacteria live on a keyboard within one square centimeter. This is due to the fact that people, sitting down at a computer or laptop, do not even think about washing their hands. Everything that you bring from the street settles in a dense layer on the keyboard. Add to this the fallen dust and crumbs. The result is an ideal breeding ground for disease-causing microbes.

What to do

First, every time you come home. Secondly, at least once a week, carry out general cleaning of the keyboard. More often if you are not the only user of the device.

Turn off the keyboard, turn it over and, gently tapping on the back, knock out the dirt stuck between the buttons. You can use a hair dryer to blow out dust and debris. Use tweezers as an aid.

Then prepare a mild soapy solution (dilute a few drops of detergent in a glass of water). You can wipe the keys and the space between them with a lint-free cloth or a clean toothbrush. After the procedure, wipe the keyboard with a dry cloth.

2. Mobile phones

During the day, a cell phone gets into a lot of dirty places: it lies in the pocket where the money was just taken out, or on the desktop, which there is always no time to wipe. The phone is taken with unwashed hands after the store, metro, public transport. In a word, he carries a huge number of all kinds of microbes during the day.

What to do

Be sure to complete the mobile phone once a week. Designate a special place for it in your purse, purse or backpack. Wipe your smartphone with special cleaning wipes as often as possible.

Take a microfiber cloth at home, apply a few drops of hand sanitizer to it, and then wipe down your mobile device. To keep your phone as clean as possible, use the headset outdoors and in public places.

3. Drainage hole in the sink

The sink siphon is the most favorable environment for the growth of bacteria. As a rule, housewives pay attention to his condition when the drain is clogged or an unpleasant odor appears.

What to do

Prepare a special solution and pour the resulting mixture into the drainage hole for 20-30 minutes. Pre-wrap a rag in polyethylene and plug the drain with it. The solution can be prepared in several ways:

• Dissolve one teaspoon of baking soda in ½ cup of hot water.
• Mix ½ cup 3-9% white vinegar and a teaspoon of lemon juice.
• Mix ½ cup of white vinegar 3-9% and a teaspoon of baking soda.

Accumulated fatty plaque is cleaned with a saturated salt solution (3 tablespoons of salt per 1 cup of hot water). After cleaning, rinse the drain with a powerful jet of hot water.

Try to keep the kitchen clean. Change your sponges and towels frequently, clean your refrigerator handles, and use five separate cutting boards for meat, fish, cooked foods, and bread.

4. Toothbrush

A toothbrush can become a breeding ground for more than 100 million bacteria that are dangerous to the body. And this is absolutely natural, because we brush our teeth every day, removing plaque and food debris. After a while, the brush literally becomes overgrown with bacteria.

What to do

Every three months, toothbrushes should be replaced with new ones and stored in an upright position.

For disinfection, you can dip the brush for 30 seconds in a mouthwash that contains alcohol. You can also immerse it in boiling water for a couple of minutes or wash it in the dishwasher by placing it on the top shelf. Rinse the brush with hot water after use.

5. Keys

There are as many bacteria on the surface of keys as there is on an elevator call button. We never wipe the keys and always take them with dirty hands. They fall in the entrance or on the street, are stored in dirty pockets and bring an incredible amount of infectious bacteria into the house. Some give them to children as toys, which is unacceptable and dangerous to the health of the child.

What to do

As soon as you get home, wash your hands first and then thoroughly wipe the keys (including the car) with antiseptic wipes. Make it a habit to keep your keys in your key holder to keep germs from spreading throughout your home.

6. Wallet and money

On average, one banknote contains about 30,000 bacteria per square centimeter. The older the banknote, the more it carries infections: helminths, Koch's sticks, pathogens of tuberculosis and meningitis. By paying with money, people exchange bacteria.

What to do

After each contact with money, wash your hands or wipe them with a special disinfectant . Keep money in your wallet, not in the pockets of your clothes. Do not leave banknotes on the dining table, in the hallway, do not throw them on the bed or sofa. Choose a permanent place for your wallet and periodically wipe it down with antiseptic wipes.

7. Carpets

There are 4,000 times more bacteria on a square centimeter of a regular carpet than on the same area of ​​a toilet bowl. The fleecy surface of the carpet becomes an excellent place for the accumulation of all kinds of bacteria, dust mites and particles of dead skin.

What to do

Clean regularly with a vacuum cleaner. To remove stains and dust, dissolve 2 teaspoons of ammonia in 1 liter of water. Scrub the carpet with a brush dipped in the mixture. Then ventilate the room and let the carpet dry.

Regular baking soda also works well for deep cleaning carpets and rugs. It can be used both in dry form and in the form of a solution (dissolve a tablespoon of soda in a glass of water). Apply the mixture to the carpet and let it sit for 40 minutes before vacuuming. So you not only get rid of dirt, but also update the color of the coating.

8. Hallway

Here you first of all bring thousands of microbes from the street straight into the apartment. In addition, pets often like to be here, which then spread the bacteria on furniture, tables, window sills and carpets.

What to do

First of all, get a special rug for the hallway, which will absorb dirt and street dust. Take off your shoes on it, and then move on.

Once a week, the mat should be cleaned with detergent in hot water. Put your shoes in order as soon as you get home. Wipe the floors in the hallway daily with a solution with the addition of any disinfectant.

9. Bathroom curtain

Bacteria multiply more actively in a humid environment. Bathroom curtains are particularly susceptible to the omnipresent. But usually they are never cleaned, believing that the soap solution that gets on the curtains is enough for disinfection.

What to do

It is recommended to clean the bathroom curtain once a month. Polyethylene curtains are best replaced with vinyl ones. They rarely get mold. In addition, they can be machine washed at 40 degrees (no tumble dry). Polyester curtains are enough to wipe with a sponge.

Soak the curtain with its fasteners in salt water. This will help get rid of mold. If the curtain is made of water-repellent fabric, it can be soaked in a mild bleach solution containing chlorine. Wipe the curtains dry after each use and ventilate the bathroom frequently.

10. Dishwasher and washing machine

Despite the fact that both technical means are designed to maintain order and cleanliness, they themselves are a source of germs.

What to do

Once every six months, clean the door seal of the dishwasher with a specialized tool recommended by the manufacturer. Wipe dry the chamber, door, seals and coarse filter daily to prevent mold.

Clean the underside of the machine door and the space between the gaskets regularly. Leave the dishwasher open after use until completely dry.

Once a month, wash the drain filter with detergent under running water. Keep the powder tray clean.

To rid the machine of mold and bacteria, sometimes use any oxygen-containing bleach. Or you can wash cotton kitchen towels by pouring 100 milliliters of disinfectant into the powder compartment.

For complete disinfection of equipment, it is necessary to thoroughly rinse all removable parts (filters, powder tray, drain hose), as well as door seals, at least once a month.

The Swiss Green Cross and the Blacksmith Institute have prepared a report on the most polluted places in the world. The speakers estimated that the list includes ten places that pose a real threat to the health of more than 200 million people in low- and middle-income countries.

1. Agbobloshi (Ghana, a suburb of the capital Accra). 40 thousand inhabitants. The largest e-waste dump ("digital dump") from industrialized countries - USA, UK, Germany, South Korea, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Absolute contamination with toxic chemicals.

2. Chernobyl (Ukraine, Kyiv region). About 500 inhabitants (before the accident 12.5 thousand). Radiation.

3. Chitarum River (Indonesia, Java Island, West Java Province). More than 5 million people live along the banks of the river. It is considered the dirtiest river in the world. Infection with heavy metal compounds and pesticides.

4. Dzerzhinsk (Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region). 248 thousand inhabitants. Deep burials of toxic wastes, sludge lake with wastes of chemical production. Very high levels of air pollution.

5. Hazaribagh (Bangladesh, part of the Dhaka metropolitan area). The world's largest leather processing center with related problems.

6. Kabwe (Zambia, Central Province). 224 thousand inhabitants. Extraction of zinc, lead, vanadium, silver, manganese, cadmium and titanium in the city. Contamination with heavy metals.

7. Southern, southeastern and central regions of the island of Kalimantan (Indonesia, provinces of South Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, East Kalimantan). Pollution with heavy metals, the consequences of predatory deforestation.

8. Riachuelo River (Argentina, province of Buenos Aires, agglomeration of Greater Buenos Aires). More than 4 million people live along the banks of the river. Accumulation of aggressive organic compounds in waters due to sewage and industrial discharges.

9. Niger Delta region (Nigeria, Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers states). 12-15 million inhabitants. Consequences of regular breakthroughs of oil pipelines.

10. Norilsk (Russia, Krasnoyarsk Territory). 178 thousand inhabitants. Contamination with heavy metals.

21.10.2009

15 most polluted places on the planet

The world population is currently almost 7 billion, and if only for this reason it is already almost impossible to find a place on the planet that would not have been affected by traces of human activity, and very often people do nothing to remedy the situation, even when all goes too far. We bring to your attention a list of the most toxic, most polluted places on the planet, compiled by the Mother Nature Network, which may be able to create at least some motivation to change something.

1. Citarum River, Indonesia
The Citarum is called the dirtiest river in the world. About 5 million people live in the Citarum basin, and for them this river is the only source of water.

2. Chernobyl, Ukraine
Chernobyl was once home to 14,000 inhabitants, but now it is one of the most dangerous and therefore the most sparsely populated places on the planet.

3. Linfeng, China
Linfeng is the city with the highest levels of air pollution. It is located right in the middle of the Chinese coal-mining region, so smog and soot from factories and cars pollute the air almost around the clock. There is even a saying here that if you hang your laundry to dry, it will turn black before it dries.

4. Great Pacific Garbage Patch
A whole island of garbage, about twice the size of Texas, is drifting in the very center of the Pacific Ocean, in the North Pacific current system. The garbage, which mainly consists of plastic waste, goes down to a depth of about 9 meters.

5. Rondonia, Brazil
Rondonia, a state in northwestern Brazil, along with the states of Mato Grosso and Para, is considered one of the most desolate areas of the Amazonian rainforest. Thousands of acres of forest have been cleared and burned, mostly to create additional pasture for livestock.

6. Jumna River, India
The Jumna is one of the largest tributaries of the Ganges. Where it flows into Delhi, it is estimated that 58% of the city's waste flows directly into the river. Millions of Hindus still use these murky, filthy waters for washing, throwing waste, and also for drinking.

7. La Oroya, Peru
La Oroya is a small mining town in the Peruvian Andes. Approximately 99% of the children living there have blood lead levels above all conceivable limits.

8. Lake Karachay, Russia
According to the report on radioactive waste presented by the Worldwatch Institute, Karchay is the most polluted place on Earth. During Soviet times, it was used by nuclear waste dumps, and now the radiation levels here are so high that you can get a lethal dose in just an hour of being there.

9. Haiti
Haiti was once 60% forested. Now, only 2% of the country has trees. The photo shows the area on the border between Haiti (left) and the Dominican Republic (right). Haiti cut down almost all the trees right up to the border.

10. Kabwe, Zambia
Lead and cadmium soak Kabwe through and through, which is not surprising after a decade of mining and metal processing in the local mountains. Children living in Kabwe have blood lead levels 5 to 10 times higher than the US EPA guidelines, and the land is so polluted that nothing can grow on it.

11 Appalachian, West Virginia
Mountaintop removal is one of the most environmentally destructive coal mining techniques, and it has been particularly used in the West Virginia Appalachians. Many mountain peaks have been destroyed to get to the coal, which has led not only to increased erosion, but also to the fact that streams and rivers flowing from these mountains now contain a huge amount of hazardous substances.

12. Dzerzhinsk, Russia
The Guinness Book of Records named Dzerzhinsk the most chemically polluted city on Earth, and in 2003 the death rate exceeded the birth rate by 260%. Over 300,000 tons of chemical waste was dumped here between 1930 and 1998.

13. Riashuelo Basin, Argentina
The name of the Riachuelo River has long been synonymous with pollution. On its banks there are more than 3,5000 factories, 13 slums, 42 open dumps, and, in addition, a huge number of illegal sewer pipes go into the river, which drain sewage directly into Riachuela.

14. Vapi, India
Vapi is located at the southern end of the 400-kilometer "belt" of industrialized states, and in fact is a dumping ground for all types of chemical waste. The level of mercury in groundwater is 96 times higher than the permissible values, and heavy metals abundantly impregnate both the air and all local products.

15. Earth orbit
It's hard to believe, but even space is a very polluted place. Approximately 300 thousand tons of space debris - coal debris, bolts, metal and carbon, even an entire spacecraft - all this is now circling the earth, threatening satellites, communications and even the lives of our astronauts.