2016 The Toxics WORLD’S WORST Beneath POLLUTION PROBLEMS Our Feet Table of Contents This document was prepared by Pure Cover photo: Executive Summary 4 Earth and Green Cross Switzerland A young man stands barefoot on land Introduction 5 with input and review from a number next to his farm in Sheikpura village on The Evidence Grows 5 of experts and volunteers, to whom the outskirts of the city of Kanpur in Scale of the Problem 6 we are most grateful. India. Beneath his feet, contaminated water pours out sewerage pipes and Vulnerability of Children 7 For questions, comments, and feedback, enters his farm. What can be done 10 please contact: Photo by Sean Gallagher Refining the Global Burden of Disease Estimates 12 Angela Bernhardt Global Health Burden of Toxic Pollution 12 Pure Earth Calculating DALYs—Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) 13 475 Riverside Drive, 860 Back cover photo: Applying DALYs Globally 14 New York, NY 10115 In a Dhaka, Bangladesh tannery, a The Burden Associated with the Top Ten Sources 15 +1 212 870 3490 man works barefoot in a pool of toxic The Top Ten List Revisited 18 [email protected] chromium-based chemicals used to process leather. Lead-Acid Battery Recycling 18 Nathalie Gysi Industrial Mining and Ore Processing 21 Photo by Larry C. Price Green Cross Switzerland Lead Smelting 23 Fabrikstrasse 17 Tannery Operations 26 8005 Zurich, Switzerland Artisanal Small-Scale Gold Mining 26 +41 (0) 43 499 13 10 Industrial/Municipal Dumpsites 27 [email protected] Industrial Estates 29 Chemical Manufacturing 30 Product Manufacturing 32 Dye Industry 34 The Pollutants 38 Lead 38 Chromium 39 Mercury 41 Radionuclides 43 Five Other Major Sources 48 Petrochemical Industry 48 Electronic Waste Recycling 49 Heavy Industry 50 Pesticide Manufacturing and Storage 51 Uranium Processing 53 Conclusion 54 3 World’s Worst Pollution Problems 2016 The Toxics Beneath Our Feet 4 Executive Summary The 2016 World’s Worst Pollution Problems report is the 11th in an annual series published by Green Cross Switzerland and Pure Earth. Over the past decade, this series has identified and drawn attention to the worst, and most dangerously polluted places on the planet, while documenting and quantifying the startling health and environmental impacts of this neglected problem. The “World’s Worst” series of reports aim to raise global awareness about the extent and impacts of toxic pollution in low- and middle-income countries while also highlighting cost-effective solutions. This year’s report, The World’s Worst Pollution Problems 2016: The Toxics Beneath Our Feet presents an update of the top ten polluting industries based on each source’s global burden of disease. The top ten industries are identified as used lead acid battery (ULAB) recycling, mining and ore processing, tanneries, dumpsites, industrial estates, smelting, artisanal small-scale gold mining (ASGM), product manufacturing, chemical manufacturing, and the dye industry. These industries collectively put over 32 million people at risk and account for 7 million to 17 million Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) in low- and middle-income countries. Each industry sector is described in detail with its respective pollutants outlined. Worst Polluting Industries Ranked by DALYS RANK INDUSTRIES DALY 1 ULAB 2,000,000–4,800,000 2 Mining and Ore Processing 450,000–2,600,000 3 Lead Smelting 1,000,000–2,500,000 4 Tanneries 1,200,000–2,000,000 5 ASGM 600,000–1,600,000 6 Industrial Dumpsites 370,000–1,200,000 7 Industrial Estates 370,000–1,200,000 8 Chemical Manufacturing 300,000–750,000 9 Product Manufacturing 400,000–700,000 10 Dye Industry 220,000–430,000 (Left) A woman tends fires of burning coal at a village outside Djaria, India, the epicenter of the country’s largest coal deposits. Villagers scavenge coal from the bottom of nearby open pit mines, burn the coal pieces to form charcoal, then sell bags of the processed coal in local markets. Photo by Larry C. Price 5 World’s Worst Pollution Problems 2016 The Toxics Beneath Our Feet 6 both human health and the environment. MAIN FINDINGS FROM 2012 REPORT Data for the report is largely the result of toxic site identification efforts by Pure Earth, formerly The 2012 report extrapolated from Blacksmith Institute, and Green Cross Switzerland. Pure Earth’s then-current database of The report is compiled using analysis of Pure contaminated sites to create a top ten list of Earth’s toxic site database and a thorough industrial sources, which ranked industries evaluation of peer-reviewed literature. using estimates of their contribution of toxic The goal of this year’s report is to present a much pollutants to the global burden of disease. improved understanding of the main polluting The report developed the first-ever figures industries, their contribution to global toxic pollution for health impacts, estimated in Disability and significance in terms of human health. Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), a standard health sector comparator. Scale of the Problem The top ten list of industrial sources were identified as: battery recycling, lead The number of toxic sites identified and recorded smelting, mining and ore processing by Pure Earth, Green Cross and local collaborators tannery operations, industrial/municipal has continued to increase and an extrapolation from this suggests that there are perhaps 150,000 dumpsites, industrial estates, artisanal gold sites in the approximately 50 countries where mining, product manufacturing, chemical investigations are underway. As the numbers manufacturing and the dye industry. The increase, the average population at risk of the sites global health impact of these industrial tends to decrease, since the largest and most sources totaled more than 17 million DALYs, obvious sites are usually the first to be recorded. with lead-acid battery recycling listed as Introduction The current estimate of the population at risk in the top-contributing source with almost 4.8 low- and middle-income countries is about 200 million DALYs. The report also concluded million, which is double earlier expectations of that the public health impacts of these 100 million people. industrial sources were equal to or greater Large as these numbers are, they are almost than that of some of the most deadly (Above) A young boy walks through the Hazaribagh tannery infectious diseases, which are highly funded The Evidence Grows district of Dhaka, Bangladesh, carrying a basket of freshly certainly underestimates. As researchers and tanned hides. Hazaribagh is the most polluted area of Dhaka, communities continue to identify and expose and receive global attention. Efforts to identify, document and assess the where the effluent from more than 200 tanneries flow into the toxic hot spots and their surrounding populations, nearby Buriganga River. problems posed by toxic sites worldwide have the numbers will likely increase. Similarly, though The report clarified that these numbers been chronicled by the World’s Worst Pollution Photo by Larry C. Price it is now accepted that pollution can lead to a were by no means conclusive, but could Problems series since 2006. As the extent broad range of acute effects as well as longer- be taken as indicative of the potential scale and number of the worst sites became better term consequences, scientists are still trying of the problem. Devoting large amounts of understood, it became important to generate contaminated sites globally and refined our burden to understand the true depth and mechanisms time and resources to address the burden figures for the health impacts of these sources. of disease calculations. This information has of these connections. In its most current of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria are This year’s report uses the growing body of produced significantly more accurate estimates of figures, the World Health Organization reports necessary and noble pursuits. However, it is scientific and medical research on toxic effects the global burden of disease of toxic pollution. that an estimated 23 percent of all deaths in of different pollutants to revisit the World’s Worst 2012 (representing 12.6 million people) and 26 a striking fact that international and national Pollution Problems listed in 2012 and to update The 2016 World’s Worst Pollution Problems Report percent of deaths in children under age five were government action on these disease both the knowledge of the scale of the problems seeks to quantify the human health impacts attributable to environmental risk factors, including burdens greatly outpaces the attention and and, more importantly, the health impacts. of toxic pollution with a particular focus on pollution.1 Approximately one-fifth of the global resources given to toxic sites, even though chemical exposures in low- and middle-income cancer incidence is associated with environmental they contribute greatly to the global burden In the four years since that report was published, countries (LMICs). The report evaluates the 2 exposures. This number is disproportionately of disease. Pure Earth and Green Cross Switzerland have leading pollution-causing industries globally and higher in developing countries.3 investigated and analyzed hundreds of additional associated contaminants that can be harmful to 7 World’s Worst Pollution Problems 2016 The Toxics Beneath Our Feet 8 Health and Pollution and Mount Sinai Medical AN INTRODUCTION TO GBD AND TSIP Center (New York). Its aim is to present critical data to key decision makers about pollution’s A major step forward in putting toxic severe and under recognized contribution to pollution on the global public health agenda the global burden of disease and its staggering has been incorporating the associated economic costs. Significantly, until recently the health effects of chemical exposures in the lack of detailed information across a sufficient range of sites and conditions has precluded Global Burden of Disease estimates.