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A terrifying new report by the Blacksmith Group and Green Cross Switzerland, shows 200 million people around the world are in danger of severe toxic pollution. This number is up from a previous report done by the two groups 6 years ago which found 125 million people in danger.

Among the report’s highlights is a top ten list of the most polluted sites around the world where highly toxic chemicals like lead, mercury and hexavalent chromium are destroying not only the environment but also people’s lives.

The countries where we find the top ten most toxic places in the world are Argentina, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, Ukraine, and Bangladesh; Russia and Indonesia each have two toxic sites on the list.

A growing threat to world health is the exponential growth of the electronics industry. Old laptop computers and television sets which contain valuable metals are being recycled in developing countries.

A city in Ghana is recycling 215,000 tons of imported e-waste by burning cable coatings to get at the lead and copper buried inside. Toxic black smoke rises from the recycling center where levels of lead in the soil are as high as 18,000 parts per million.

Another site on the list is an area of Buenos Aires in Argentina which has 15,000 industries releasing noxious chemicals into the river.

In Bangladesh, hexavalent chromium is being used in dozens of tanneries and then dumped into nearby waterways. Ten thousand families who live in the area have no clean water.

In Dzershinsk Russia, the life expectancy for women is 47 and for men it is 42 because of the staggering amounts of chemicals poured into the ground by a chemical weapons factory.

GUEST: Jack Caravanos, Professor of Environmental Health at the City University of New York’s School of Public Health and a Science Advisor with the Blacksmith Institute

Visit www.blacksmithinstitute.org for more information.

Visit www.worstpolluted.org to read the report.