Russia has some of the most polluted areas in the world, according to an independent environmental action group.
The Blacksmith Institute named, - in a research titled “Blacksmith Institute’s Worst-Polluted Places list for 2006” dated October 18- ten places in eight counties “affecting a total of more than 10 million people were identified as the areas where environmental degradation presents the worst long-term health threats and, at the same, an opportunity to reverse the problem, “ the research said.
The ten places on Blacksmith Institute’s list are Linfen in China, Haina in Dominican Republic, Ranipet in India, Mailuu-Suu in Kyrgyzstan, La Oroya in Reru, 3 places in Russia, -Dzerzinsk, Norilsk, Rudnaya- Chernobyl in Ukraine and Kabwe in Zambia.
“A key criterion in the selection process was the nature of the pollutant,” says Richard Fuller, director of Blacksmith Institute. ‘The biggest culprits are heavy metals-such as lead, chromium and mercury- and long-lasting chemicals-such as the Persistent Organic Pollutants or POPs. That’s because a particular concern of all these cases is the accumulating and long-lasting burden building up in the environment and in the bodies of the people most directly affected”.
The report continues saying that still most of the most-polluted places are little known, even in their own counties. Most of the people affected are exceedingly poor.
Concluding, the report observes that there are some towns where life expectancy approaches medieval rates, where birth defects are the norm not the exception. In other places asthma rates are measures above 90% or mental retardation is endemic.”