Pollution

The World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) says cigarette butts have become the most discarded waste item worldwide, with some 4.5 trillion thrown away each year, representing £1.69 billion of toxic trash annually. WHO-FCTC said various studies indicated that this was compounded and accelerated as bans on indoor smoking took effect in many of the world’s cities and ...

The Fraunhofer Society, a German research organisation, says some 330,000 tonnes of microplastics are entering the environment each year. According to a study released on Tuesday, September 4, 2018, researchers said the largest contributor of microplastics – tiny pieces of plastic that do not break down for many years and damage the bodies and tissues that absorb them – is the tyre ...

Nnimmo Bassey, Director of the ecological think tank, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), speaking at the Sustainability Academy (with the theme “Extractives, Oceans and Fisheries”) on Friday, August 31, 2018 at the Centre for Conflict and Gender Studies, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, laments the spate at which oceans are being polluted It has become common knowledge that by ...

Shocking new research suggests air pollution has a serious impact on mental capabilities as well as physical health in human beings. High levels of pollution can trigger a decrease in language and arithmetic skills – with the average impact of ‘dirty air’ equivalent to losing a year in education. The United Nations has blamed air pollution for seven million deaths worldwide each ...

Hundreds of people were on Friday, August 24, 2018 evacuated from their homes as about 600 firefighters battled a blaze in a forest strewn with unexploded ammunition south of Berlin. A pall of acrid smoke hung over the city. Attempts to fight the fire were complicated by the presence of the ammunition thought to date from the Soviet Army’s activities ...

The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) says it has recovered over 95 percent of spilled oil from the recent spill incidents on sections of the Trans Ramos Pipeline (TRP) in Aghoro community, Bayelsa State, and in Odimodi community in Delta State. The pipeline, which has remained shut-in since the incidents, supplies crude to the SPDC Joint Venture-owned Forcados Oil ...

Five sites in Germany are due to present plans to make public transport more enticing in the bid to reduce private car use and tackle air pollution. The cities of Bonn and Essen in the west of the country and Mannheim, Reutlingen and the town of Herrenberg in the south-west are expected to share €130 million ($148 million) through 2020 ...

As the government works on continuing abandoned water projects, another reason to complete them in the fastest possible time has come to the attention of many Nigerians and this involves water’s capability to get rid of air pollutants indoors. Based on a study done by avian diseases experts Daniel J. King and Bailey W. Mitchell, water can purify the air by ...

The New Delhi, India-based think tank, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), in a new global study titled: “Clunkered: Combating Dumping of Used Vehicles – A roadmap for Africa and South Asia”, appears to have lifted the lid on the dark underbelly of a large-scale global trade in old and used vehicles from high income to low- and middle-income countries ...

Some residents of Port Harcourt and Bolo communities have lauded the Federal Government, Rivers Government and the Nigerian Navy for taking steps to end hydrocarbon pollution in the state. A cross section of respondents who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday, July 18, 2018, said the soot emission had suddenly disappeared from their homes and places ...