Comments (39)

1. Wow, sucks to be the people living in these areas. Ever see Hills Have Eyes?

   posted by Roadrunner on 7-4-2009 at 2:21 pm

2. Just think,If Cap and trade passes,, we will pay for cleaning up this mess…Not the countries who create it….Its so bad Pres. Clinton didnt pass it….

   posted by paul hansen on 8-15-2009 at 10:31 pm

3. paul,

   We created most of the mess in the first place by buying products that require this pollution to be produced. And we allow corporations headquartered in the US to use massively polluting manufacturing practices. We are clearly to blame, so it’s only fair if we pay to clean up.

   Although I’m not sure where you got the argument that we will be cleaning up other countries’ messes…we’ll just consume a little less, hopefully, because energy prices will be higher.

   posted by Boris on 8-21-2009 at 10:44 am

4. This is very disappointing information.
   I am so sadden to live in a world with so much greed and hate.
   All around us, people in positions make decisions that affect a whole nation.
   People that feel they have “entitlement” are never, never, never content.
   And yet they are the ones to pass judgements.
   NOT MY JOHNeY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

   posted by Vicky on 8-21-2009 at 12:22 pm

5. So…Ukraine is a city now?!?

   posted by Rob on 8-21-2009 at 5:28 pm

6. Notice how lead is the predominant contaminant? But eco-people buy hybrids like the Prius and Insight and somehow feel like they’re doing their part for the environment. But projecting a green image is much more important than the facts…..

   posted by mike on 8-23-2009 at 12:54 pm

7. I thought they put Ukraine as a city too. But it’s really on the previous line: Chernobyl, Ukraine.

   posted by Xylo on 8-23-2009 at 2:40 pm

8. Chernobyl, Ukraine – read more than one line

   posted by RFH on 8-24-2009 at 2:50 am

9. Hey boris, what type of spoonfed crap have they been feeding you? First, joint efforts of both parties to screw us send the work overseas, and now a mostly democratic (socialistic) run country wants me, who buys only american, to pick up the tab for other countries? We can’t afford to stuff OSAMA wants to put out now, how the hell are we going to do this with other countries?

   posted by Mikahel on 8-24-2009 at 10:29 am

10. Why do people always bring this back to the evil US, give me a break. Russia and eastern block countries are the predominate polluters in this list and the US is not importing a whole lot from those countries so the premise that US consumption drives world pollution is flawed…maybe you should move abroad if you think we’re so evil here. If those countries (cities within) moved towards real democracy and capitalism and away from socialist corruption they would become cleaner just form the natural order of individuals striving for cleaner and healthier homes, neighborhoods, cities etc. Socialism breeds corruption and greed and thus pollution.

    posted by AdamChicago on 8-25-2009 at 12:27 pm

11. A rebutting comment to the comment that Prius and Insights are more image than fact with respect to reducing environmental damage.….. Agreed, hybrid cars are not perfect eco neutral systems, but they don’t use lead batteries for operating power. Furthermore when you consider that a typical auto uses 3 to 5 times its own weight in fuel during its lifetime, the fact that hybrids use so much less gasoline and burn it much more cleanly, they are a lower environmental impact solution than a conventional gasoline driven car.

    posted by Eric Doberstein on 8-28-2009 at 12:26 pm

12. The only ones to blame are the consumers who buy, use, and toss the crap that we “think” we “need” to survive.Is it really just a carbon footprint, or a tech advanced human footprint that we need to focus on.

    posted by s d carmiencke on 8-30-2009 at 8:38 am

13. acutally, it’s the city pripyat in the ukraine which housed the workers for the nearby chernobyl power plant. youtube has a pretty cool 6 part docu-drama about it.

    posted by Shawn Barry on 8-30-2009 at 6:19 pm

14. Mikahel,
    you must do without a lot of things, or alternatively have really expensive things. I doubt the CPU in your computer was made in America, and certain the memory was produced in Taiwan.
    The World Wide Web is Swiss by invention and the Internet was developed by the largest and most expensive branch of the US Government in a socialized attempt to keep us safe from Soviet missiles.
    Even Nixon wanted national health care for everyone.
    “Osama”, clever word play there. Keep up the enlightened discourse.

    posted by Smapdi on 9-3-2009 at 1:39 am

15. I love to read posts like this.
    It shows just how intelligent and/or ignorant American individuals are.
    With 305 M people and the highest purchasing power in the world yes the US directly or indirectly is to blame for a lot of the world pollution since the 2nd world war. Of course not far behind is the European community with 500 M people but it is made up of 27 different countries. Behind the pollution being created in a lot of the developing economies or 3rd world where regulation is loose, corrupt, or simply non-existing there is sure to be an American joint venture of one type or another.
    Now, I would like to see what some of you think or will say when places like India and China with even higher populations reach the consumerism of the USA, and all of sudden you find acid rain raining on your parade. Could you imagine the Amazon rainforest which produces 20% of the world’s oxygen and Brazil itself a growing contributor to world pollution was to bottle it up?

    posted by Guroplanet on 9-3-2009 at 10:34 am

16. ours is a huge country – and large countries are white elephants –

    the most unfortunate thing about our country, speaking as an USAian who has lived abroad and defended my country even as I live here and in order to defend my country i critique it -[ please note, that for the intelligent who use that intelligence constructively, there is an enormous difference between criticism and complaining/moaning/whining/mewling,] is that most of us have never lived outside our own county, nor travelled far nor lived anywhere else, and so naturally they think they live in THE CENTER of the world. One term for this is ‘provincial ignorance’, another is ‘paranoid recluse’, another is ‘child abuse’, for bringing a child into a world of ignorance, hate, small-mindedness, fear of difference.

    small things, like using ss water-bottles and eschewing plastic sandwich bags are a very small good, but it is also a placebo and it is being mistaken for the cure – and mr and mrs Local don’t even know squat from what the problems are, but they are sure the loudest mouth speaks the biggest truth, as long as it agrees with all their own very strong superstitions – which is why some of them are so content to moan about their weight, but do nothing about it (Please pass the fried chicken backs and don’t skimp on the gravy)

    Calling anything they do not like ‘communist’ or socialist’ or ‘dogless’ (godless, you half-wit), basically they all feel they were born white and so why isn’t teh world at their beck and call.

    As it happens, no ‘race’ is immune from this conundrum, nor is any ‘class’ et c. Such behavior really demonstrates what a lack of education, or a poor education can do to/for a populace –

    so anyway, if it wasn’t so ridiculous, some of the comments one sees everywhere, it would be funny to see people make such stupid mistakes, over and over again,

    persons who have never learned to think for themselves, who accept information as absolute truth with no thinking or investigation of their own, using an OPEN mind, can make even the ‘greatest country on earth’ a place made desolate by ignorance, which leads to greed, avarice, our type of capitalism, blah blah blah

    These are the folks who have sucked like a vampire at the optimism and idealism that the whole struggle for our self-determination sought.

    Schools are the first answer – the people want better ones for their children, too much of the ‘powers that be’ only want clones to man their machines in order that the ownership class can own even more, and more, and more,

    to hell with the pacific, we are such a grand country, we’ll just dig our own ocean and install it somewhere in the midwest – maybe we’ll name it the Indian Ocean, for the people we pushed off the land so we could lay industrial and agricultural waste to it, as is our dog-given right (god-given, you half-wit)

    it’ll be the really poorly literate who complain about my grammar, not finding the ain’t’s and duh’s in their own vocabulary, which to each other make them highly understandable, the way you can tell when a dog barks (god, you half-wit) whether he wants to eat or bite you

    and i never really got to my point that the democracy which is the root of our potential to be a republic, is never ever going to function when the ignorant insist that their superstation should be everyone’s science, that belief trumps knowledge, that might equals right, that ends justify the means, all this can only lead to the mean becoming the end of a possibly useful experiment in other circumstances – that is, of a people governing themselves through their representatives

    it has been since about 2nd grade that i have really hated teh dummies who gravitate to the back of the class – and now, at 60, they are still here among us, multiplying, growing ever more belligerent and toxic, fatter and louder and more blonde,

    America, home of the corpulent and truculent –

    quel dommage

    posted by iolo on 9-4-2009 at 11:28 am

17. You noticed China is at the top of the pollution list and will remain so, because in 2012 the USA will be required to buy their CFL’s which are full of mercury. They love it, it produces more money for them. I hate it; I don’t want to accidently drop one and have mercury in my home, you can’t get rid of it. So, perhaps the USA will eventually go on the top 10 list.
    Why do we have to spend more money cleaning up the world? NAFTA pushed all our manufacturing out of this country. We can buy very little product that is made in America so, we are broke and jobless and the so deep in debt we will never see our way out of it. Another proposed program that STINKS.

    We are already paying for the WORLD to get abortions. And now proposing one billion for the Gaza strip.

    I’m wondering just what the government is doing and whose side they are on???

    posted by Jean84 on 9-4-2009 at 3:31 pm

18. Hi Iolo is this what you are talking about (Jean84)?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp
    Follow the link and learn.

    posted by Guroplanet on 9-4-2009 at 7:49 pm

19. Hey hey

    Lets go back to the stone ages.
    There are pros and cons to everything.
    You want that computer to voice your opinion????
    You think there was no environmental impact in the manufacturing of that device????
    Before you start (or continue) to support the radicals in changing things overnight look around your own backyard and see how much of the things you use everyday you could live without.
    Right now the estimates are $80,000 for each US citizen (nothing for the illegal immagrates) for the debt to “FIX” a couple of the problems.
    We Do Need changes – but look around – What are YOU WILLING to give up????
    I have already lost my job and any decent resemblence of life……
    Hey Buy a hybrid (research the environmental impact of the mining for the battery materials) Stop using Plastic. Way too late for that….
    Stop using oil. Plastics etc. Do I need to comment??? Food – ready to grow your own????
    Are you ready to give up (LOSE) your job.
    Are you ready to watch WAl-MART disappear? Yes? Look at the big picture…..
    Yes I agree we need some changes — but think first.
    What happens when you open your mouth before you think?? Not always a good thing is it??

    posted by the realist on 9-8-2009 at 8:39 am

20. Hey realist follow your own advice.

    posted by Guroplanet on 9-8-2009 at 7:39 pm

21. Well said iolo.
    History repeats itself. People adapt & change, if not they perish. Governments never stay the same. Our children inherit our mistakes & successes as we did our parents’. Life goes on and we all die from something. It used to be from plagues, famine, or natural disasters. Now we live a few decades longer and become quite squeamish at our mortality. Let’s give sacrifices to…whatever. god? charities? We over-think yet still rely on religion as a final answer? How primitive of us all.

    posted by Kate on 9-12-2009 at 6:08 pm

22. For all the illogical hatred focused against the United States and our free market economy – often by liberal Americans – plase note that none of these cities are actually in the United States.

    And don’t even try to lay this at the doorstep of American corporations investing abroad. Nearly all of these cities are in China, former Soviet nations, or India. Those have historically been SOCIALIST countries not open to investment by American corporations.

    Could it possibly be that regulated free-market, capitalist economies provide a level of wealth, development, and sophistication that promotes the formation of a middle class and fosters the will and technological capacity to better care for the environment?
    (that is a rhetorical question, the answer is obvious)

    posted by Don on 9-13-2009 at 12:46 pm

23. http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
    It seems that I’m quite naive about this subject. I submit the following for consideration obviously this debate has been around for a while.
    Now some are going to dwell on certain aspects of the presentation like the question whether “does God exist or not” or “conspiracy theories fact or fiction” and automatically dismiss it. But I invite you to start simple.
    1st – View it and listen to everything, play it back, make notes but don’t watch it as if it’s just a sitcom or soap opera.
    2nd – After start researching and read opinions about it pros and cons.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist,_the_Movie
    The point here is just too at least consider the simple ideas. Some examples could be:
    - Is war really necessary or counterproductive to humanity?
    - Is the monetary system at the heart of all misery?
    Now you should find yourself actually doing the thinking and the research, not just accepting blindly what you are told is the truth. That’s called forming an opinion and that’s real democracy. Of course there are many for who “thinking and researching” is too difficult or it hurts them so state your situation and don’t just babble on endlessly. Leave it for those who genuinely seek to find the answers.

    posted by Guroplanet on 9-15-2009 at 2:08 pm

24. Gee Algore, why don’t you go overseas and rant and rave to all these European and Asian countries that are doing all the polluting. Be honest, the great old US of A is the cleanest country of its size on the earth. You may find some small enclave that is clean and pretty, but when you go to the major populations of the world outside the US, they are dirty, scanky, and smelly. Leave us alone, AL. ps. your film strip winning an award was a slap in the face to all the true Nobel winners who have gone before you. A real man(debatable in this case) would have refused it.

    posted by Positive attitude on 9-16-2009 at 2:08 am

25. Response to Positive attitude
    Please note, that for the intelligent who use that intelligence constructively, there is an enormous difference between criticism and complaining/moaning/whining/mewling,] is that most of us have never lived outside our own county, nor travelled far nor lived anywhere else, and so naturally they think they live in THE CENTER of the world. One term for this is ‘provincial ignorance’; another is ‘paranoid recluse’. Case in point iolo.

    posted by Guroplanet on 9-16-2009 at 2:28 pm

26. Speaking of history repeating itself, this is starting to look like Red Scare 2.0 to me. How long before you start turning in your “socialist” neighbors?

    Too many morons who have no clue about what socialism is all about…but they’re sure quick to use it as a synonym for social ills and regurgitate their tired Fox News babble…meh.

    posted by joe dude on 9-21-2009 at 7:41 pm

27. I might agree with you about all of us helping to clean these messes up, BUT, how many countries add cahs to our superfund cleanup or help to clean up messes in the USA.
    It always seems we are the one’s at fault no matter what.
    Screw that, take care of your own country, unless we nuke it, but that is another list!

    posted by LTZ on 10-7-2009 at 2:54 pm

28. Who said the U.S. was going to pay to clean up other country’s messes? We already pay our fair share of the cost of polluting them.
    Hey realist, I’d love to start making some of the changes you suggest, but people like you always stand in the way. (Keep it up and we will go back to the stone ages, or at least your great grandchildren will. But they’ll just have to suck it up themselves right?)
    I always try to buy local, but why can’t the U.S. produce a car that can go a year or two without breaking down, or one that beats my (at least assembled in America) Toyota Corolla’s 38mpg? I thought we could do anything???
    I’m out of work also because of the economy, but I guess that’s the cost of a couple of lousy wars. One screwed up in the first years, and one we were lied into. Did we really think they wouldn’t cost anything??? I sure would’ve liked to have spent that money here in the U.S. for say, alternative energy development. Both parties are to blame. Although, it really falls at the feet of those in power at the time…
    Please let Wal-Mart disappear, I don’t shop there. It won’t bother me, besides everything they stock is cheap crap that never lasts. Oh, and they censor books, music, and movies. When you can only buy from Wal-Mart, and there are no longer other options, then you’ll see just how much they really love and care about you.
    A good portion of every U.S. Dollar you spend at Sprawl-Mart goes right in the Socialist Bank of China. Cha-ching! They import much more than half their merchandise from China. Keep shopping there patriots.

    Hey Jean84, you’ve probably had fluorescent bulbs in your kitchen or bathroom for years. Say, maybe you’ve already dropped too many.

    Hey Don, India’s socialist? Since when?

    Hey Adam Chicago, Democracy and capitalism don’t go hand in hand. Look back at the history of this country in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, then you’ll see the kind of greed and corruption rampant, unchecked capitalism breeds. I think we wrongly see everything in black or white, when actually a hybrid, if I may, of the two is the way to go. All of one or all of the other is a bad deal for the average Joe. There has to be a happy medium. Please enlighten me as to how we are so socialist now? I’m listening? Is the government requiring you to buy a car from G.M.? Are seniors required by the government to use Medicare? I’m listening…

    Oh, and finally, I can name a country as big as the U.S. that is cleaner. It’s called Canada. But NAFTA is already changing that. Thar she blows!!! Oil!!!

    posted by digibot on 10-8-2009 at 2:05 pm

29. IS IT A CRIME IN AMERICA TO EXPRESS AN OPINION? They forgot how filthy Chicago is. The whole city is disgustingly smelly and the Chicago pollution causes OZONE ACTION alerts up and down the Lake Michigan coasts during hot summer weather, Chicago pollution as far as 200 miles from Chicago!! The kids eat and breathe their Chicago pollution: 85% of inner city kids in the City of Chicago drop out of High School even though the school system gets 27% more money per student than the national average. The entire Chicago area ought to be leveled and the land returned back to nature.

    posted by Barfup Obama on 10-9-2009 at 12:11 pm

30. blog, blog, blog, blog, blog! I really get a laugh when I read these things because 98.6 of them are so normal. 1.4 have something really interesting to share, without the need to mock others, and make themselves feel good at the belittling of others. I have found that there is always someone who is a bit more informed, or a bit more experienced, a bit more… than I. Very little is truly objective; therefore, the rest must be subjective, and as such, it comes down to one’s opinion, which we all have, and we all know what they are like, don’t we?

    posted by modest mensa on 10-21-2009 at 5:04 pm

31. Oh my word..the USA is far from the most ignorant of countries, having been to a few. Like all countries, we too have our share of religious fanatics.

    But who can honestly answer these?!?

    How many life forms have been living within the most radioactive parts of Chernobyl?

    -and-

    Which country has been expending the most most nuclear waste as bullets and war heads?

    Answer these, and I’ll have found a person with whom I can have a serious discussion.

    Otherwise, I’d just be wasting my time with the uninformed or religiously blinded.

    Enjoy life and make the world a better place to what ever extent you can!

    Create and enjoy peace!

    posted by BayonneDude on 11-7-2009 at 12:50 pm

32. Gotta love how America comes into this coversation even though America is not even close to the pollutants of these Asian and Eastern European countries. Get over it and stop blaming American for all your problems especially since its not in vogue anymore.

    posted by Steve on 11-12-2009 at 7:46 am

33. CONFIRMED. The Oroya PERÚ the city most polluted of the world.

    Dr. Godofredo Arauzo

    Blacksmith Institute visited the Oroya city in May 2008. The observations about the achievements in the pollution by this metallurgic complex, according to statements of The Inter American Association for the Defense of the Environment (AIDA) by its name in Spanish.are DECEIVING, because such statements have no basis; is a summary presented by Doe Run. AIDA sustain that the environmental quality and the fulfillment or the degree of protection for human health of the Oroya city can not be evaluated based on the quantity of investment made by the company but it should be done based on the current data about the quality of air, lead level in the blood and another environmental and health indicators, that the report does not take into account (1).
    Critic that Blacksmith is based on limited datum in order to evaluate, for example, the sulphur bioxide (SO2) level in the zone. Blacksmith Institute affirms that the SO2 concentration in the Oroya city has a day time average of 5.000 ug/m3 (maximum allowed is 13 ug/m3) (CDC); but during the day that Blacksmith was in the Oroya, the SO2 concentration was 0.(1)
    Finally AIDA concludes that the Blacksmith report undermines the efforts to really reach the remediation and cleaning of Oroya city (1)
    AIDA express too that the quality of air in the Oroya has deteriorated seriously after the metallurgic complex came into Doe Run’s hands. Doe Run itself said that the lead concentration raised to 1.163%, the arsenic to 606% and the cadmium to 1990% (2). The concentrations of lead, cadmium, arsenic, sulphur dioxide and others have substantially increased since 1997, mainly due to the increasing of production; for example, the lead production raised 25% (3). The inhabitants of Oroya city are contaminated by a toxic cocktail (4); it is a living laboratory.
    The cadmium concentration (Cd) raised dramatically since the acquisition of the complex by Doe Run. In 1999 the Cd concentration was 0.22 ug/m3 in the Syndicate (the level allowed was 0.0055 ug/m3); it surpassed by more than 40 times the frontier and did not inform anymore to the Ministry for Mines and Energy (MEM) since year 2000; in the same way, the arsenic concentration soared meaningly since 1997. There is not monitoring of particulate material smaller than 2.5 micra (PM 2.5), that are the most dangerous to human health and move easily. Ceverstav says that the parameters of air quality have been deteriorated dramatically after Doe Run have in charge of the complex (5)
    The Environment Protection Agency of USA (EPA), has 1467 chemical compounds registered as the most harmful and the sulphur dioxide (SO2) is ranking number 16 in dangerousness (6). Cevestav showed based on the same figures that Doe Run sends to MEM every 3 months, that SO2 emission had incremented in more than 200% since Doe Run has in charge the complex (5).
    Blacksmith affirms that the SO2 concentration in the Oroya is in average 5,000 ug/m3 (1); another author reports that this average is 934 ug/m3 (2); the level allowed is 13 ug/m3 (7). The day time concentration is higher between 8 am and 5 pm and it reaches a peak of 2,100 ppb (the allowed value is 280 ppb) (5). In August 13. 2008 the SO2 concentration arrived to an historic and horrifying limit: 27,000 ug/m3 (8-9-10) (the allowed figure is 13 ug/m3 (7).
    Another heavy metals and highly toxic compounds are not analysed in the Oroya: vanadium, uranium, mercury, antimony, barium, selenium, chromium, cobalt, molybdenum, nickel, and aluminum (2). The inhabitants of the Oroya are contaminated, not only with lead but too with cadmium, arsenic, sulphur dioxide, and antimony, as well; the antimony concentration is 30 times higher than in USA (11): .
    There has not been any decrease in the air concentration of lead in the last 5 years in the Oroya; in Huanchan such concentration is above 15 times the level permitted; in the months of January and February 2007 it was an excess of 245% above the allowed level in Huanchan station; in 2006 the cadmium concentration exceeded 48 times the levels allowed by the WHO (12): lead production increased by 25% (2).
    Doe Run monitors only specific sources; it does not monitor the toxic agents that are emitted through the 95 small chimneys neither it monitors to the deposits of concentrateds and deposits to arsenic of Vados and Malpaso, as it does not monitor either the elimination coming from the industrial incinerator and the cock plant that was emitting 23,800 meters cubits per day of toxic gases (PAMA).
    Doe Run explained that the pollution of the Oroya had diminished; one attendant person spitted that the pollution has increased; the lecturer answered: show me a document about your statement and the person replied: the best document who I count of is my contaminated body’ (4).
    The SO2 emissions from the cooper Peruvian smelting are among the production sources of the highest sulphur dioxide concentration in the world and they are also among the most contaminated production sources in the world (13).
    There is not concrete information about the quality control systems to the sampling and to the analysis of the monitoring procedure used by the company; we are not certain about the accuracy, confidentiality and suitable of the information reported to MEM; the figures reported to MEM could be considered as an approximation and are under valuated and they are not in electronic neither in graphic form (5).
    The contamination generated in La Oroya is not only limited to this city, but it also pollutes distant areas like Concepcion, 100 km far away of Oroya: University of Missouri found lead in the blood of children with ages 0 to 6 years: 20 to 44 ug/dl in the 72.22% ; 10 to 19 ug/dl in the 16.67%; 45 to 69 ug/dl in the 8.33% and less than 10 ug/dl in the 2.78%; it means that the 97.22% of the children of the city of Conception are contaminated with more than 10 ug/dl of lead in their blood; the amount permitted was 10 ug/dl; but, at present the Academy of Paediatrics of USA says that the maximum allowed is 0 ug/dl of lead in the blood (14). In the rural zone near the Oroya, Cuchimachay there is an amount of 59.26 ppm (the allowed level being 3 ppm) of cadmium in the soil; there is no vegetal cap in this place (15).
    The metallurgic complex of Oroya has 37 liquid flows that go to the Mantaro river; Doe Run monitors only 12. The rules of the Peruvian state about monitoring of the quality of water in the mining works state that all the liquid discharges that go to surface waters must be constantly monitored (5-16).
    The 2006, 26 July Doe Run obtained the ISO 14001:2004 certificate (17) and the 2008, 11 March was removed because the company did not fulfull the Peruvian environmental laws, and did not have appropriate measures for preventing the pollution (18).
    Doe Run the 2007 commited 4 heavy and 1 simple violence environment that the Peruvian state had to put to Doe Run a fine to $ 724,500 (The Comercio 08. 20-12)
    In Huancayo, 120 km far away from La Oroya there is jurisprudence. In 1942 the Judiciary Power orders to the Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation, owner of Oroya at that time, to pay a compensation of $ 200,000 to Bazo Velarde, because of the harms caused to the Jatunhuasi Livestock, by the smokes of the Oroya (19).
    The Judiciary Power (20), the Constitutional Court (21) and the Inter American Commission for Human Rights (CIDH, for its name in Spanish) (22), demanded that the Peruvian state to be aware about the health of the inhabitants of Oroya..
    Oroya pollutes the surface and deep waters, the soil, the air, and generates acid rain (23), factors that cause damages to human and animal health, the ecosystems and biodiversity, in a way greatly irreversible. The smokes of the Oroya have affected 700,000 hectares around the Oroya (2-24).
    Doe Run will reduce its contamination in two circumstances: when it uses up to date technology as put in practice in Herculeanum, or when it reduces the refining tons. The Trial plant, in Canada, decreased in 25% the lead concentration in the children blood, and reduced the concentration of heavy metals in the air in more than 75%, by the use of clean technology; in the Paso when the foundry was closed, the lead concentration in the air decreased immediately and the lead concentration in the children’s blood plummeted by more than 75%; in Torreón Mexico, the government ordered to refine only a 50%, and similar effects were obtained (5). The damages must be paid by Doe Run according to the world consensus THE THAT POLLUTE PAY, set in practice in Europe since 1972 (25); the way as it does in Herculaneum can reply these actions in Oroya city (2-27).
    .The 2008 August 13 Oroya city has been confirmed as the most polluted city to the world. This day the SO2 concentration in air in the Oroya reached an historical and horrifying level: as journal The Comercio said (8); it arrive 27,000 ug/m3; while the allowed level was 13 ug/m3 (7) and the device that measured the concentration got to its maximum limit probably if the device had had more space in its scale that figure would have been higher (8-9-10), but when Blacksmith was visiting the Oroya the SO2 concentration in air was 0 (zero) (1). Some other figures confirm that Oroya is the most polluted city on the earth: according the report Mantaro Revive 2007: in the Ancienty Oroya has a soil concentration of 4713 ppm of arsenic (As) while the allowed amount is 12 ppm, and the cadmium (Cd) has 193.87 ppm while the permitted amount is 14 ppm, according to the Canadian Environmental Quality Guidelines (28).

    posted by Godofredo Arauzo on 11-12-2009 at 6:57 pm

34. The reason that pollution happens on this kind of scale is just apathy about life in general. Destroy the future for a pleasant present. The tyrants that wrecked these places did so in order to make good lives for themselves. But the future ever bleaker for the next gen. The cylce will continue until its no longer an effective way to make money. There will always be a country willing to sacrfice its people in order to in rich its rulers. There will always be businesses that have no problem making money on death. Sometimes i regret fathering children because i don’t want them to inherit our mistakes and the misery that those mistakes will bring.

    posted by phydid on 11-16-2009 at 12:17 pm

35. I have to comment about the posting above that NAFTA took all our jobs and sent them overseas, and so it’s not our problem. Unfortunately, Chapter 11 5.3 was written in specifically to address environment concerns, but proved to be completely ineffective, and that failing environmental policy led to the free reign of the US over Mexican and Canadian (wth Mexico being way more exploited) environments; that is, US companies could now operate with relaxed/minimal/no environmental regulations, hire Mexicans to work in horrid conditions for little pay, all so that American consumers could buy a microwave on the cheap.

    Also, the microwaves was just assembled in Mexico, but the parts were most likely made in SOCIALIST China, so it is all connected, blood is on everyone’s hands, and the consequences are inequitable. Unless we start acting as a world community, the dynamic of the global north raping and pillaging the global south will endure and become even more polar.

    This is not a conservative or liberal viewpoint, it is the ugly truth.

    posted by L G on 12-7-2009 at 5:16 am

36. it always cracks me up to hear people say things like \how about that computer you use\, or, \how about that job you have\, or \how about the wasted stuff in your yard\, are you ready to give all that up? \think first\ before you critizise.

    What a bunch of garbage. That’s like saying while we kill oursevles off as a race, at least we had fun doing it. What’s lacking in the argument that change can’t come because we all would have to adjust to a different way of life is that without change – we’ll have no life. We’re not living in a sustainable way – and that’s because financially it hasn’t been made viable. The total (read \total\) cost of doing business from cradle to grave has not been factored in. Mines should be run with environmental sensitivity, coal plants should be run without emissions (yes, its possible), cars should be run without harmful discharge, products should be created without damaging side effects, etc, etc…

    will this have an affect on costs? well DUH! Of cours it will….but it will have the greater affect of reducing the chances we kill ourselves off in the process of driving to work everyday in that \cheap\ car burning \cheap\ gas. The far reaching costs of not taking the price tag into account up front is far far greater than the costs we save today while ignoring the true \cradle to grave\ costs of doing business.

    posted by dan on 12-7-2009 at 1:24 pm

37. Stop typing and start doing, douchebags!

    posted by Joe Scioscia on 1-21-2010 at 6:00 pm

38. I agree Joe. Everybody wants to blame everyone else. We are all to blame.

    posted by Motaki on 2-17-2010 at 6:53 am

39. A horrifying but true reality. I can’t even imagine how people can live there daily… specially little children; it’s like you’re doomed to die young the day you’re born.

    posted by Fallout Earth on 4-5-2010 at 12:31 pm

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