Displaying items by tag: pollution

Beaches in Bexhill and Normans Bay in East Sussex have been closed after untreated wastewater was released into the sea at the shoreline. Hastings borough council also advised people against swimming at Pelham Beach due to pollution. Southern Water said they were ‘deeply sorry’ and understood ‘the distress this causes’. The liquid, including sewage, was released when the primary power and back-up system failed on 17 August. A member of Bexhill SeaGals sea-swimming group believes water companies should be ‘held accountable’, adding, ‘It is unbelievable and outrageous that they can continue to get away with this’. The head of Surfers Against Sewage said, ‘Years of underinvestment are now in plain sight. It is time that huge water company profits were diverted to properly managing water and sewage and protecting people and planet. Our rivers and beaches should not be subject to this type of industrial environmental vandalism.’

Scott Morrison's government is criticised for its inaction on climate change. When Australia - long considered a climate policy laggard – holds an election on 21 May, the outcome could be significant for the planet's future. Still reliant on coal for most electricity, it is one of the dirtiest countries per capita, making up over 1% of global emissions with only 0.3% of the world's population. It is also a massive supplier of fossil fuels globally; when that is factored in, it accounts for 3.6% of the world's emissions. Australia is most at risk from climate change, having recently suffered severe drought, historic bushfires, successive years of record-breaking floods, and six mass bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef. It is racing towards a future full of similar disasters. Climate policy played a role in toppling three prime ministers in a decade. Most voters want tougher climate action, but some coal towns in swing constituencies are key to winning elections.

Donna Anderson loved living near the Trent and Mersey canal, but when it rained her garden was flooded with sewage from the canal and nearby streams. She has had to install extra drainage. It is believed the culprit is Severn Trent Water dumping sewage once a month on average into Barton-under-Needwood stream. This is not a nasty isolated incident. Dozens of people’s lives are blighted by raw effluent being pumped into rivers, canals and streams by water companies across the country. Water companies can discharge raw sewage into rivers in ‘exceptional circumstances’ of heavy rainfall which could cause flooding, but it is happening with alarming regularity. In 2020, sewage spilled into rivers 403,171 times, with serious consequences. Sewage is damaging the quality of over a third of rivers. The Daily Telegraph is calling for action to protect England’s waterways from devastating pollution: see

It is fire season in Thailand, with hundreds of patches of farmland and forest ablaze in the north, belching toxic fumes into the atmosphere and poisoning the air. Tiny pollution particles caused an estimated 32,000 premature deaths in Thailand in 2019, according to a global report. Along with exhaust fumes and crop burning, smoke from the wildfires contributes to the problem. On the worst days this year, drifting smoke made Chiang Mai the most polluted city in the world. As the years go by, the pollution is getting worse. Each year, on average, northern Thailand has been swathed in smoke for eight weeks, causing thousands of health problems. In the first three months of this year 200,000 people in eight provinces have been made ill by toxic particles in the air, according to health officials. ‘Most of the people hospitalised already had chronic diseases,’ said the director-general of the ministry of public health.

The UK is not meeting its current targets on limiting air pollution. Therefore, pollutants from traffic fumes, factories and industrial sites put vulnerable people at risk. Highways England is preparing to introduce reduced speed limits on four locations by the end of September. The speed limit will be reduced to 60mph for a trial period to improve roadside air quality in areas which are identified as having high levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from car engines. Each location is up to 4.5 miles long and the new speed limit reductions will be operational 24 hours a day. The reduced speed limits will be assessed after a year to see if they are having an impact. Asthma UK says co-ordinated measures are required at a local, national and European level to improve air quality; it believes not enough has been done. See

Lockdown has reduced vehicle traffic across India, leading to a drop in air pollution in over 90 cities, including Delhi. Welcoming the reduced pollution, environmentalists are now urging the government to treat it as a ‘wake-up call’ and stop its ‘obsession’ with development at the cost of the environment. Shutting down of industries, construction and traffic have contributed in improving the air quality. Rain is also helping, but the curbs on local emissions are playing a significant role in recording air quality in the range of good in 51 cities and satisfactory in 51 cities.

Tearfund has warned that Coca-Cola is in danger of being left behind, as more companies make the move away from plastic. It has urged the soft drinks giant to ditch single-use plastic after it topped a list of worst corporate plastic polluters for the second year in a row. The list, published by the Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) movement, is based on the number of items collected by more than 70,000 volunteers during community clean-ups across 51 countries. 11,732 branded Coca Cola plastics were recorded in 37 countries, more than the next three top global polluters combined. BFFP’s 1,800 member organisations are calling on corporations to reduce their production of single-use plastic and find innovative solutions focused on delivery systems that do not create pollution. Other top polluters are Nestlé, PepsiCo, Cadbury, Unilever, Mars, Procter and Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, Philip Morris, Mentos, and Chupa Chups.

Research published on 14 November shows that London’s low-emission traffic zone has modestly reduced residents’ exposure to diesel engine pollution, but the better air quality has not brought improved lung health among children. The results suggest that while air pollution levels may be reduced by low emission zones, extra measures are needed to deliver air clean enough to improve health. WHO says that in addition to the pollution problems caused by diesel vehicles, nitrogen oxide - which has been linked to asthma and impaired lung development in children - has become a major problem. Professor Chris Griffiths, who co-led the research, said, ‘In many areas of London, air pollution still remains a major issue’.

India's capital Delhi is battling high pollution levels and extreme temperatures due to an unusual dust haze covering the city. Many people have breathing problems and say the city has become an unliveable place. The state government has banned all construction, and the fire brigade is sprinkling water across the city. People are advised to stay indoors as much as possible. Fourteen Indian cities are among the world's most polluted, according to World Health Organisation. The dust is a carrier of PM2.5 - tiny but deadly air particles, which can increase the likelihood of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Delhi's air pollution is triggering a health crisis. Many residents are saying, ‘Right to clean air should be a part of right to life as enshrined in the constitution’, and ‘It's high time to bring in electric vehicles’. Others assert that Delhi needs a forest buffer zone, which would not be very expensive to implement.

Theresa May has pledged to eradicate all avoidable plastic waste in the UK by 2042. But green groups say the proposals will have no legal force. For new proposals to work, they need to be put into law. Under the government's plan, supermarkets will be urged to introduce plastic-free aisles while taxes and charges on single-use items such as takeaway containers will be considered. The amount of single-use plastic wasted every year would fill the Royal Albert Hall a thousand times. Environmentalists agree that the government's plan to restore nature - not just safeguard nature - is genuinely radical. It covers managing land sustainably, reducing pollution and waste, and protecting and improving the global environment. See also the next article, on fracking.