Lead is a toxic metal that causes adverse effects on both human health and the environment. While lead exposure is also harmful to adults, lead exposure harms children at much lower levels, and the health effects are generally irreversible and can have a lifelong impact. Lead paint is a major source of childhood lead exposure.
Plastic waste has become an unprecedented pollution issue, blanketing our planet in the petrochemical remnants of plastic production. This report examines current and emerging methods by which plastic waste is managed globally and questions whether any of them present a solution to the rapidly accelerating generation of plastic waste. In short, they don't and the only long-term answer is to produce less plastic.
Places like the US, EU, or Australia create vast amount of waste, including plastic waste, exporting much of it to countries lacking the resources or infrastructure to manage them safely. This study looked at levels of toxic chemicals samples of eggs in and around places where the waste is often burned openly to obtain metals or as a fuel source. The study found some of the highest levels of certain toxics, such as chlorinated dioxins ever measured in the environment.
Waste generated from the use of plastics is a challenge for the whole of human society. Plastics are everywhere around us, and we can find tiny parts of plastics in even the most pristine places. Most plastics were invented by chemical scientists, and in order to make the plastic suitable for many different uses or to make them meet legislative requirements for fire safety, for example, they need chemical additives that make the plastic resistant, flexible, durable or less flammable.
Both the African environment and the human health of Africans suffer from toxic chemicals and imported wastes more than in developed countries. Africa has become the destination of illegal toxic waste exports and, as this study shows, toxic chemicals are also present in toys, kitchen utensils, and other consumer products sold in African markets.
This study of mercury levels in women from four Latin American communities is the latest compilation of data in IPEN’s global mercury biomonitoring program. Hair samples were taken from women living in or near the mining towns of Vila Nova, Brazil, El Callao, Venezuela, Íquira, Colombia, and two groups living in Bolvia's Beni river system. The results for the Bolivian women were especially concerning: they had the highest mercury levels in our study, yet have no engagement with mining or contact with mercury and are reliant on a subsistence fish diet.
This report is based on a European study, carried out by 8 civil society organizations, into the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in paper, board, and molded plant fiber disposable food packaging and tableware, sold in six European countries: The Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
Chemicals are polluting oceans and waterways, not only endangering wildlife and those who rely on seafood for sustenance, but threatening the collapse of many fisheries. In combination with global warming, this is a catastrophe in the making. This report is the first to begin to detail the numerous ways and places in which chemical pollution and climate change is destabilizing this marine infrastructure and the world's fisheries.
Non-combustion technologies for the destruction of persistent organic pollutant (POP) waste have been around since the 1990’s. They provide a non-polluting and effective alternative to incineration of POPs waste, an old technology which continues to release and emit unintentional POPs (UPOPs). Incineration has become a trap with a never-ending cycle of attempted POPs waste destruction followed by more unintentional POPs creation in the form of dioxins and furans from the combustion process. Non-combustion processes can destroy the same waste and allow us to break free of the POPs cycle once and for all.