Tag: Pollution

Libya’s wildlife treasure island at risk of ruin

by Hamza Mekouar FARWA, Libya (AFP) — Once famed for its exceptional wildlife, Libya’s Farwa island risks becoming just another victim of lawlessness in the war-ravaged North African nation, activists struggling to save it warn. An uninhabited 13-kilometer-long (eight mile) sandbar cut off at high tide in far western Libya, Farwa appears picture-postcard idyllic, with scattered date palms on white sandy beaches and ringed by the sparkling Mediterranean Sea. The International Union for Conservation of […]

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Pollution turns Argentina lake bright pink

TRELEW, Argentina (AFP) — A lagoon in Argentina’s southern Patagonia region has turned bright pink in a striking, but frightful phenomenon experts and activists blame on pollution by a chemical used to preserve prawns for export. The color is caused by sodium sulfite, an anti-bacterial product used in fish factories, whose waste is blamed for contaminating the Chubut river that feeds the Corfo lagoon and other water sources in the region, according to activists. Residents […]

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Sri Lanka faces marine disaster as ship fire extinguished after 13 days

by Amal JAYASINGHE COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AFP) — A fire aboard a ship that triggered Sri Lanka’s worst-ever marine ecological disaster was finally extinguished Tuesday after a 13-day international operation, the navy said. The near two-week inferno prompted a mammoth clean-up operation as huge volumes of microplastic granules from the Singapore-registered ship’s containers inundated 80 kilometers (50 miles) of beach. The unprecedented pollution forced a fishing ban and saw thousands of troops deployed to scoop […]

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99 of 100 cities most at risk environmentally in Asia

  by Marlowe HOOD Agence France Presse Of the 100 cities worldwide most vulnerable to environmental hazards all but one are in Asia, and four-fifths are in India or China, according to a risk assessment published Friday. Across the globe, more than 400 large cities with a total population of 1.5 billion are at “high” or “extreme” risk due to some mixture of life-shortening pollution, dwindling water supplies, deadly heat waves, natural disasters and climate […]

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Controlled bushfire cloaks Sydney in hazardous smoke

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Sydney was enveloped in a thick bank of hazardous bushfire smoke Monday, forcing authorities in Australia’s largest city to scale back controlled forest burning nearby. Ferries were cancelled and the city’s five million residents were told to stay indoors if necessary, as air pollution levels spiked. Levels of hazardous PM 2.5 pollution — particles that can seep deep into the lungs and cause respiratory illnesses — were among the worst in […]

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Wall of sand engulfs Chinese town

BEIJING, China (AFP) — A towering wall of sand rushed over factories and apartment blocks in northwestern China’s Gansu province as seasonal sandstorms barrelled across the country, causing air pollution and traffic accidents. Aerial images as it struck showed an apocalyptic scene as a billowing cloud of yellow dust smothered Gansu’s Linze county on Sunday. State media CCTV reported multiple car accidents in the province caused by low visibility, while meteorologists have warned people to […]

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Noise pollution poses long-term risk to trees: study

  by Patrick GALEY Agence France Presse Noise pollution poses a long-term risk to tree populations and plant diversity that may persist even after the sources of excess noise are removed, according to research published Wednesday. Manmade noise from construction, industry and the building of infrastructure such as roads and pipelines has increased dramatically since the middle of last century, and biologists are increasingly concerned about their impact on plants and animals. While previous research […]

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Beijing smothered by hazardous yellow smog

BEIJING, China (AFP) — Beijing was cloaked by a thick yellow smog on Monday with pollution surging to hazardous levels as a sandstorm swept across China’s capital. City residents used goggles, masks and hair nets to protect themselves from the choking air, with landmarks including the Forbidden City and the distinctive headquarters of state broadcaster CCTV partly obscured behind an apocalyptic-looking pall of smog. The city government ordered all schools to cancel outside sport and […]

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Toyota to pay $180 mln to settle US emissions violations: govt

NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Toyota will pay $180 million to settle charges it failed to comply with rules mandating that auto companies report problems with vehicle emissions to authorities, the US Department of Justice said on Thursday. “Toyota pays the price for its misconduct with a $180 million civil penalty and agreement to injunctive relief to ensure that its violations will not be repeated,” Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark said in a […]

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Washing your clothes can create Arctic microplastic pollution

by Kelly Macnamara Agence France-Presse Households in Europe and North America are flooding the oceans with plastic pollution simply by washing their clothes, scientists said Tuesday after research found the majority of microplastics in Arctic seawater were polyester fibres. Plastic particles have infiltrated even the most remote and seemingly-pristine regions of the planet. These tiny fragments have been discovered inside fish in the deepest recesses of the ocean — the Mariana Trench — peppering Arctic […]

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EU court finds against ‘Dieselgate’ car firms

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) — The European Court of Justice ruled on Thursday that it had been illegal for car companies to install devices to defeat emissions tests and mislead motorists about diesel pollution levels. “A manufacturer cannot install a defeat device which systematically improves, during approval procedures, the performance of the vehicle emission control system and thus obtain approval of the vehicle,” the court said. The statement identified the manufacturer subject to the complaint as […]

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London coroner rules air pollution contributed to young girl’s death

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — A British legal first was made on Wednesday when a coroner ruled that air pollution contributed to the death of a nine-year-old girl with severe asthma who lived by a busy road. Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah died in February 2013 after a serious asthma attack. In the previous three years, she had been taken to hospital nearly 30 times with breathing difficulties. The young girl lived in southeast London just 30 metres […]

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