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Archive for category Worst Polluted Places

Protecting Children in Schools

Jan 10

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As we’ve been harshly reminded, schools can sometimes be exposed to great danger. The tragedy last month got me thinking about what we are doing in schools in Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan. Although the threat is different, the response is the same – we are working to reduce the risks and make things safer.

Mailuu-Suu was where the Soviet Union mined uranium for the first atomic bomb. Since then, residents have been living with this tragic legacy.  Radiation literally flows out of the taps in Mailuu-Suu.  But you wouldn’t immediately spot the danger just by looking at the water or the surroundings.

Mailuu-Suu school cafeteriaIn one school’s neat cafeteria (pictured), where pretty pink curtains frame the windows, and rows of tables are set with lace tablecloths and colorful mugs, children were eating food cooked with contaminated water every day.  Overlooking the room, as if to obscure Mailuu-Suu’s position as one of the world’s worst polluted places, is a poster of a pristine lake flanked by lush mountains and trees. Outside, the children were washing their hands and faces, and drinking water filled with radioactive particles out of a tap in the yard.  Mailuu-Suu’s schools were preparing these children for a bright future, which they might not have because of the constant, everyday poisoning.

It is a complex problem that cannot be solved quickly.  The contamination is everywhere.  We had to start somewhere. So what we did was to focus on reducing the risks to the most vulnerable. We began installing water filters in schools and the hospital.

Child getting blood test, Mailuu-Suu

Child getting blood test, Mailuu-Suu

While each filter is supposed to last for 3 years, in Mailuu-Suu they are useless after just 9 months because of the severe levels of contamination. Until the entire community is cleaned up, we will just have to keep replacing these water filters.  It is the last line of defense for these children.

It is not the ideal solution but it is working.  It is reducing the health risks to these children.  There is still much work to do and the threat remains.  But we cannot just do nothing and we cannot wait for a perfect solution. We must do what we can to make a difference now.  This is true in Mailuu-Suu.  And it is true here in the U.S.

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Ancient City’s Lead Poisoning Problem – 40,000 Preschoolers At Risk

Mar 26

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This week’s blog post is from Andrew McCartor, Blacksmith’s regional program director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia:

Blacksmith was recently approached for help to raise awareness about the massive toxic pollution caused by an active lead smelter in the ancient city of Shymkent (Chimkent) in Southern Kazakhstan in the former Soviet Union.

A volunteer, Jeff Temple, working with an NGO that was planning the construction of a large children’s playground in the city, discovered that soil at the site contained 2,000 parts per million (ppm) of toxic lead (the U.S. standard is 400 ppm of lead in bare soil in children’s play areas). Some reports estimate that 40,000 preschool children are at risk from lead poisoning in Shymkent.

Unfortunately, this massive problem is not a new one. In fact, a lot of data has been collected over the past 10 years regarding toxic levels in the city. Blacksmith has also been working in the region.  In 2008, we reached out to teachers and staff at 22 schools and 12 kindergartens about the health hazards of lead. We also distributed brochures and posters to schools and medical institutions to help spread the word. Currently, we are working on securing funding for a project to train environmental professionals in Shymkent on lead remediation. (Read about a similar Blacksmith project in Russia removing lead from children’s playgrounds and schools).

While this problem has been known for at least a decade, it is still waiting to be discovered by many others.  As more concerned global citizens find out about it, change is bound to happen, especially if we all persist and work together. The children of Shymkent are waiting.

To learn more, here is a link to an article, A Poisonous Legacy, written by Jeff for The Chemical Engineer.

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An 8 Million Ton Problem

Aug 24

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Dr. B. Sengupta recently sat down with Sarita Gupta to talk about India’s growing toxic waste problem – by his count, India generates over 8 million tons of toxic waste every year but only has the capacity to deal with half of that amount.

He should know. For 30 years, Dr. Sengupta worked at the Indian government’s Central Pollution Control Board.  Now, as Blacksmith’s technical advisor in India, Dr. Sengupta is helping us with our pollution cleanup efforts in the country.

I am reproducing Sarita’s post below.  Sarita met Dr. Sengupta while in India doing research on nonprofits.  Sarita is a Blacksmith consultant and supporter.  Thanks, Sarita.

Tackling India’s Growing Toxic Waste

Ever wonder what happened to that old computer you junked or that dead car battery? Chances are they were transported thousands of miles to a developing country where poor people make a living from extracting lead and other metals from discarded items. Recycling e-waste might be economically productive but exacts a huge environmental and health toll when toxins and heavy metals are dumped improperly, often right in the same communities as the workers. The result is millions plagued with disease, disability and death.

I recently became involved with the Blacksmith Institute, a nonprofit that is removing poisons from contaminated playgrounds, schools, homes and factories as well as large river systems and entire communities in the developing world. Blacksmith focuses on pollution that is acute and geographically confined as opposed to say, carbon emissions. The effects of this type of pollution are generally immediately felt and related to identifiable causes like pesticide runoff. They can usually be addressed at local or national levels.

During a trip to India last month, I met with Blacksmith’s national technical advisor, Dr. B. Sengupta. India has hundreds of thousands of poor people engaged in recycling e-waste and lead batteries. Add to that the numbers engaged in dyeing fabric or tanning leather or working in small smelters. In the US strict government regulation and monitoring would prevent a business from dumping toxins improperly. But in India, said Dr. Sengupta, anti-pollution laws exist mainly on paper. Instead of a few mega corporations as found here, India has over five million small and mid-sized industries, making monitoring virtually impossible.

According to Dr. Sengupta, India produces over eight million tons of toxic waste every year. The Indian government in the last 25 years has built 28 facilities for the proper transport, storage and disposal of toxic waste. These facilities however have the capacity to only handle one-half of the total.

The result is a four million ton problem that only promises to get worse with industrialization and population growth.

The Indian government to its credit is trying to address the problem. The Ministry of Environment & Forests has been allocated a significant amount in the current Indian budget to remediate polluted sites and the World Bank has stepped in with additional monies. Along with resources, there is strong expertise in India regarding pollution. However no complex remediation projects have yet been implemented and there is a dearth of state-of-the-art technical expertise and trained personnel to do so.

Enter Blacksmith Institute. The organization brings the best scientific practices from around the world and the latest and most cost-effective technologies to each project. It has a roster of senior experts with environmental health and engineering experience to address specific toxins and develop the appropriate remediation plan. The Ministry has invited Blacksmith to assist in site identification and the development of detailed remediation plans. It is a case of what I call ‘optimal collaboration’ between developed world expertise advancing the agenda of a developing government committed to resolving its own problems.

Dr. Sengupta, who retired after 30 years of executive positions at the Central Pollution Control Board (akin to our EPA), is optimistic about India’s future. The good news here, he says, is that toxic pollution can be cleaned up and stopped through regulation, community education and proven alternative and modern technologies. He is willing to battle killer heat, indifferent bureaucrats and strenuous travel to continue his lifelong quest of making India’s environment safer and healthier. Just don’t get him started on India’s sewage problem.

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Save a Life this Holiday Season

Dec 23

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS!  I am taking this shameless opportunity to remind everyone out there that there’s still time to take Blacksmith Institute’s $5 a Day December Holiday Challenge! 

So if you are still wondering what to get that somebody who has everything, why not get them the gift that can be everything for someone.

For the month of December, Blacksmith’s board will double your contribution.  So for the 9 days left in December, your $5 a day will add up to $45, which means that $90 will go towards supporting pollution cleanup. For that amount, you can save 2 lives and have money left over.  That’s because Blacksmith’s pollution cleanup can save a life for as little as $42.

And there are many polluted sites to clean.  We know this because over the past year, we have been building a global inventory of the world’s worst polluted places. The database is 1/3 completed. Here are some numbers behind the project to date:

* 140: the number of Blacksmith investigators currently assessing polluted sites around the world

* 20: the number of coordinating staff on the project

* 12: the number of regional training sessions that have been held around the world linking local investigators with international experts

* 40: the number of countries visited so far

* 60: the number of countries the inventory will cover

* 1,285: the number of polluted sites assessed to date

* 3,000: the number of polluted sites expected to be assessed

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Lessons from the past for Copenhagen

Dec 8

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For the next two weeks, the eyes of the world will be on Copenhagen, where leaders of some 200 countries have gathered to try to find some kind of consensus on tackling the problem of climate change.

“Unless the world can combine its efforts, we won’t solve the problem,” said Jonathan Pershing, the State Department’s special climate envoy.

And he is right.  While we probably won’t see the effects of any agreements that come out of Copenhagen for many years, I have no doubt that they will make a difference.  You see, global cooperation in the form of treaties and agreements do work.  This is what we found out while putting together Blacksmith’s latest World’s Worst Polluted Places report.

We found that the world is in a much better shape today because of cooperative global decisions made decades ago. Here are 2 examples from the report.

1) The worldwide leaded gas phase out that began in the 1970s was a global effort by governments, multilateral agencies and the private sector to eliminate lead in gasoline. As a result, as of February 2009, only 11 countries continue to use leaded gasoline. Elevated blood lead levels among children dropped from 88% in the pre-phase out years to around 1%  in the post-phase out years.

2) The Chemical Weapons Convention was an international treaty to eliminate chemicals used as agents of warfare. The treaty was approved by the UN General Assembly in 1992 and ultimately ratified by 188 countries, effectively curtailing nearly all production and use of chemical weapons worldwide.  Since 1995, chemical weapons stockpiles in Russia and the U.S. have been destroyed through a network of public outreach offices and educational activities. Destruction programs are ongoing.  By 2021, all chemical weapons in the world should be destroyed.

Although there are ongoing challenges still facing these two worldwide initiatives, the results are undeniable.

The promise of Copenhagen is a better, cleaner world. If we can all work together, we can solve the problem of climate change AND pollution.

– Richard

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