Top 10 most environmentally dirty places on the planet

99% of scientists agree that the climate on Earth is changing at a tremendous speed, faster than they can analyze it. The remaining percentage of scientists are paid generous subsidies by oil-producing and other industrial companies to cover up the shameful consequences of their activities. Carbon dioxide is just one of the many causes of global climate change. Methane is a much more serious problem — it is about 17 times more toxic than carbon dioxide.

As glaciers melt in the oceans, methane is produced, which has been hidden in them for millions of years in the form of frozen plants. If all the glaciers of Greenland with a volume of 2.3 cubic kilometers melt, the sea level will rise by 7.2 meters, and a hundred of the most populated cities in the world will be completely under water. It is not yet known how long the second largest ice sheet in the world can melt, but the worst thing is that the largest glacier — Antarctica-has already begun to melt.

In recent years, huge amounts of hazardous waste have entered the Earth's atmosphere. Industry and fuel companies destroy natural resources, cut down forests and release deadly substances into the atmosphere. There are places on Earth that nothing seems to help anymore, only time.

Most of the electronics that we throw away will most likely end up in a huge, constantly burning landfill in Ghana. There is a terrifying mercury content here, 45 times more than is permissible in the United States. More than 250 thousand Ghanaian citizens live in dangerous conditions for their health and life. This is especially true for those whose job is to poke around in this dump in search of metals to be processed.

Once there were camps for enemies of the people here, and now it is the second largest city beyond the Arctic circle. The first mines appeared here in the 1930s, when no one thought about ecology. It is home to the world's largest complex for melting heavy metals, which releases about two million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere annually. Miners in Norilsk live ten years less than the average in the world. This is one of the most polluted places in Russia: even snow has a taste of sulfur and black color. Sulfur dioxide emissions cause diseases such as lung cancer.

About two million barrels of oil are pumped out of this zone every day. About 240 thousand barrels fall into the Niger Delta. From 1976 to 2001, about seven thousand cases of oil spills in the river were recorded here, and most of this oil was never collected. The spills heavily polluted the air, resulting in the formation of such carcinogens as polycyclic hydrocarbons. According to estimates given in a 2013 study, pollution caused by spills has a huge impact on cereal crops, which led to an increase in digestive disorders in children by 24%. Other consequences of the oil spill also include cancer and infertility.

About 15 thousand companies dump toxic waste directly into the Matanza-Riachuelo River, which flows through the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires. The people who live there have almost no sources of clean drinking water. There is a high level of diseases associated with diarrhea, oncology and respiratory diseases, which reaches 60% among 20 thousand people living on the banks of the river.

About 95% of registered tanneries in Bangladesh are located in Hazaribagh, a district in the capital Dhaka. It uses outdated and prohibited methods of leather dressing in other countries, not to mention the fact that all these industries throw about 22 thousand cubic meters of toxic chemicals into the largest river. Hexavalent chromium, which is contained in these wastes, causes cancer. Residents are forced to put up with a high level of respiratory and skin diseases, as well as acid burns, nausea, dizziness and itching.

The level of mercury in the river is more than a thousand times higher than the standards of the American Environmental Protection Agency. Additional studies have revealed extremely high levels of toxic metals, including manganese, iron and aluminum. The capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, is a city with a population of 10 million people. The Chitarum River valley is covered with a large amount of various toxic garbage — industrial and domestic, which is dumped directly into the river waters. Fortunately, the country's authorities have taken the initiative to clean up the river, which will be financed by a loan from the Asian Development Bank for $ 500 million.

300 thousand tons of hazardous chemical waste were thrown out in and around the city from 1930 to 1998. In 2007, Dzerzhinsk entered the Guinness Book of Records as the most toxic city on the planet. In water samples, levels of phenols and dioxins were found thousands of times higher than normal. These substances are directly related to cancer and diseases leading to disability. In 2006, the average life expectancy of women here was 47 years, and men-42 years, with a population of 245 thousand people.

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant holds the title of the most terrible nuclear disaster in history. The radiation release as a result of the accident was about a hundred times greater than as a result of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The surrounding area of the city has been empty for more than 20 years. It is believed that about 4 thousand cases of thyroid cancer, as well as mutations in newborns, are caused by the consequences of the disaster.

After the strongest earthquake, a 15-meter tsunami covered the cooling units and power supply of three Fukushima reactors, which led to a nuclear accident on March 11, 2011. More than 280 thousand tons of water with chemical waste are being held at the power plant now, and about 100 thousand tons of water are believed to be in the basements of four reactors in turbine shops. The accident liquidators tried to send robots there, but they melted when they got too close. People in this area are at risk of getting a variety of types of cancer. According to the World Health Organization, this is the most polluted place in the world. There is a 70% higher risk of getting thyroid cancer among girls who were exposed to radiation in childhood, a 7% higher risk of thyroid cancer among boys and a 6% higher risk of breast cancer in women.

It is believed that Lake Karachai is the dirtiest place on Earth. It is located next to the Mayak production association, which produces components of nuclear weapons, isotopes, and is engaged in the storage and regeneration of spent nuclear fuel. This is the largest and one of the least efficient such production facilities in Russia. It has been dumping waste into the river flowing into Lake Karachay since the 1950s. The place was classified until the mid-1990s. There were several nuclear accidents at the plant, and toxic waste got into the lake. Before the authorities recognized these facts, the number of cases of leukemia, 25% of birth defects and 20% of cancer among the population of the Chelyabinsk region increased by 40%. Enough radiation for one hour at the lake to die.